Paper Heart (2009)

Shot in documentary style, but in reality largely improvised (as witnessed by the fact that it won a screenwriting award at Sundance), Paper Heart wants to examine the nature of true love through the eyes of a couple of Hollywood stars.

Charlyne Yi (This is 40, Knocked Up) stars as herself. She’s a lovelorn starlet, searching for connection, while trying to understand what draws any two people to each other.

She moves in Hollywood circles, that bring her in contact with many celebrities (both major and minor). At a party she talks briefly with Micheal Cera (TVs Arrested Development, Juno, This is the End, Scott Pilgrim vs the World). The pair have a mutual attraction, but are both also wary. She doesn’t trust that true love exists, while he’s reluctant about being filmed constantly.

The film crew is intentionally on-screen. The “director” is played by Jake Johnson (Drinking Buddies, Safety Not Guaranteed). He conspires with Yi, trying desperately to coax a storyline from Yi’s romantic pursuits.

One interesting aspect of Paper Heart is its use of crude animation in its story telling. Rough sketches are made into even rougher puppets, and creatively assembled to accompany voice-over narration. These were my favorite parts of the film.

It has its moments, but overall I didn’t buy Paper Heart. It doesn’t reveal any new insights about human interaction, romantic or otherwise. Yi doesn’t come across as anywhere nearly as lonely and disillusioned as she professes. As similarly revealed in the 1997 Woody Allen doc Wild Man Blues, it seems Cera is more confident in real life than his accepted persona projects; he merely plays insecure onscreen. I expected more, and was mildly disappointed. 

However, there’s a bright spot in bonus DVD features. Yi conducts brief interviews with celebrity comedian friends. Her short conversations with Bill Hader and Demetri Martin (among others) are the funniest things about Paper Heart.