Sadly Over-hyped

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie is very much like Charlene Yi. It pretends to be something it's not, and doesn't quite succeed enough on any level. Is it a documentary? No. Is it a scripted movie? Much more so than it pretends not to be.By blending predictable, scripted and entirely acted romantic comedy elements in with what "appears" to be more standard documentary-style interviews, the viewer is left to wonder if anything they are seeing is real, and once that foundation of belief is cracked, the entire movie loses legitimacy. It's not good enough to be a documentary; it's not good enough to be a romantic comedy. Two negatives do not equal a positive.The movie borders on a saccharine-styled Blair Witch Project with better production values. Li further carries this deception into the real world, denying that she's dating Michael Cera, but then noting in other places that their relationship ended in 2009, conveniently as the movie is released. She also tried to create fiction around her age, pretending to be ten years or more older than Cera, even though she looks she could sit in a high school geometry class. This leaves us to wonder, Why? The deception adds nothing to the movie plot, it's not a cutting-edge move, it's really nothing more than an annoyance.From the acting side, Li's cutesy nerd style plays well at the start, but wears thin as the movie progresses. Cera is normally a solid actor, but interesting his scenes are the ones where it's most obvious the movie has drifted from faux documentary to a clearly acted and scripted production. It's a bit unsettling.It's not unwatchable, there's even one or two points where it's almost charming, but many viewers are going to walk away feeling a bit flat, and a bit played.You don't need to dive to find the remote to turn this movie off it it happens to show up for free on your TV. Yet you're not missing anything if you make it through your earthly existence without seeing Paper Heart. It's mildly entertaining, but just as easily could have been produced by a second-year NYU film student.

The most disturbing part of this film was that it was hard not to feel that Michael Cera was acting his romantic part in this pseudo- documentary and that Charlyn was truly falling for it. On the surface it appears as though Charlyn wants to make a documentary about how she doesn't believe in love, but sets out on a trek across country trying to find out what it means to other people. All the while, I got the impression that the director had an agenda all his own, desiring to manipulate Charlyn into falling in love during the making of this film, Michael Cera being the catalyst. It is uncomfortable to watch from this perspective. It exploits this homely characters weaknesses. I can see these men conspiring behind this innocent girl's back, proving to the viewer and to herself that she is capable of love, but that nobody had yet given her the time of day, or the opportunity for love. Regardless, Michael Cera's effortless approach serves only to exacerbate this perspective. All this desperate girl really needs is the slightest bit of attention to fall in love. Her stubborn refusal to admit she is in love with Michael as her supposed friend traipses her around Paris for 12 hours in her weakest frame of mind just adds to the humiliation of it all, especially considering the scene where Cera walks her around the grocery store for a half hour trying to decide what to make for her to eat, settling on a frozen cheese pizza. So pathetic, you begin to wonder if she even has a mind or will of her own. Her friend/actor makes vague suggestions to perhaps be more feminine, or bathe, and that perhaps men would be more interested in her. She ends up awkwardly on Michael Cera's porch, like a lost puppy dog trying to find home. She fell in love and got her heart broken before she even knew what hit her. Oh, and the psychic was right.I'd call this a nerdxploitation film.

"Paper Heart" is everything you'd expect from a post "Juno" Sundance darling, which is probably enough information in itself to color your opinion of the film. First-time feature director Nicholas Jasenovec's pseudo-documentary examines the fictional relationship between comedienne Charlyne Yi ("Knocked Up," "Semi-Pro"), whose thesis is that she is incapable of love, and her real-life boyfriend, Michael Cera, who's fast becoming the festival's crowned prince. The footage is spliced together with decidedly ho-hum celebrity interviews (Seth Rogen, Demitri Martin are featured) nonchalantly credited as "Charlyne's Friends," experts in the psychology of love, and real couples recounting the foundation of their relationships, aided by ultra low-fi reenactments by Yi featuring rag dolls and paper sets.The film is wholly indie, hitting the familiar beats and consulting that worn checklist (awkward quirky character's self-written guitar sequence--check). It's too cute and well meaning to dismiss outright, but for a film about love, it has nothing particularly profound to say on the subject. So "Paper Heart" seems then a fitting (if self-deprecating) title for the piece in that the real elements are supporting a merely average fiction, rather than the scripted segments bolstering a real love story: the heart of the film is flimsy, two- dimensional."Paper Heart" is in large part not compelling because we know it's fake. The audience second-guesses any potentially genuine moment between Yi and Cera, reducing the documentary elements to supplemental gimmickry and each awkward giggle to a calculation. The structure of the film is fairly formated (narrative/interview/reenactment/narrative), assumedly with the intention of keeping any one of the film's components from growing stale, but it almost has the opposite effect. The grating sequence of scene types ends up highlighting how little the filmmakers really have on their plate. The ending then scrapes the bottom of the barrel, taking a page from Herzog's "Grizzly Man" in its snooty refusal to share a piece of audio (here a post break-up conversation between Yi and Cera), but if the restricted information is fictional, who do they imagine cares?Jasenovec and Yi, who's credited as co-writer, developed some intriguing concepts to be sure, and the premise sounds enlightening, but the utterly average romance between she and her co-star diffuses any potential... well, potential. What have we learned about love by the end of the hour and a half? Certainly nothing we couldn't have gleaned from a hundred other PG-13 romantic comedies."Paper Heart" does have a clear audience in mind, and it's fair to note I'm not it. The film will satisfy most and delight probably a few less traveled moviegoers. Approach it as a fictional film, and you may be less let down. The characters are mostly charming (save for the faux director played by a smarmy Jake M. Johnson), and there are a handful of legitimate laughs to be had.Just don't listen to the Sundance hype that would have you believe every two-bit indie film coming off the assembly line is a revelation compared to Hollywood's weekly drivel. The truth is that independent films, particularly comedies, are becoming increasingly generic and exponentially more mainstream."Paper Heart" is likable enough, but is still a long shot from innovation.

This movie is entertaining and probably one of the least obnoxious movies I've seen in a long time. The plot centers around innocence and the meaning behind "love", not "Love" -- in other words it was trying to define the term as the movie plays out, instead of assuming what the love interest ("Love") is and allowing the characters to play along. Another thing that made this movie refreshing is that in the beginning the main character was along for the ride as a passenger, and often does some back-seat driving, complaining about the fact that the camera is watching her every move. But as the plot starts to force her to take the wheel, she finds she cannot drive. This is what causes the pinnacle of the movie, when she cannot tell Michael that she loves her, when it is obvious that she does. This discovery of self is what makes the movie interesting -- we discover her as she discovers herself.The writing was fresh, especially since the move took place withing the guise as a documentary. I enjoyed that the director allows us to see behind the movie making facade, and we even see the camera men get in the action occasionally. The interviews with long-time couples kept the fact that this was supposed to be a documentary believable. Also that the actors names were not disguised (although the director was for some reason). Now that I think about it, that makes sense since the move becomes reality only for Charlyne and Michael.Although Charlyne is cute and real, there are some points where I would have liked to see some real acting to keep the documentary aspect a bit more believable. She sometimes has a look on her face of "what am I doing here" and I'm afraid it makes the movie at times lose it's momentum.The vignettes with the paper puppets (or whatever you would call them) are cute and act well to divide the plot up. The last one is perfect for this movie -- Charlyne has gotten herself into a mess she doesn't know how to get out of and must raise herself to a point of toughness where she can even take on the police department. Then in an act of final valor, she pulls Michael along with her for the ride. Charlyne had had moments when she stood up for herself, but the ending summarizes her journey of discovery and validates that she understands that to consummate love sometimes requires a bit of selfishness.I wouldn't underplay Michael's role because he was fantastic in the movie, but this is mostly about Charlyne's journey. Unpredictable most of the time, "quirky" almost to a fault, but with a solid movement towards this climax, this movie is a nice counter play to most of the formula plots in current love story movies.