Director: Nicholas Jasenovec
“Paper Heart” is a movie that’ll work depending on how much you enjoy watching Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera. Right of the bat, you should know this: the movie is cute. Like, really fucking cute. And, more alarming, it knows damn well how cute it is. It has the ability to aggravate and intoxicate in equal measures, and fortunately I found myself in the latter category.
In the film, actor Jake M. Johnson plays director Nicholas Jasenovec (the real director of the film). He’s set on making a documentary about a close friend, comedian/musican Charlyne Yi, who claims that she doesn’t believe in love. Charlyne wonders throughout Los Angeles, interviewing everyone from college professors to Elvis impersonating ministers, and attempts to uncover what all the fuzz is – what is this “love” everyone speaks of?
Before you know it, Charlyne wins over the heart of Michael Cera, playing himself. She resists the idea at first, but soon finds herself going out to dinner and a movie with him (she neglects to admit that it’s a date). This relationship happens so quickly that, with any other two actors, it would be downright offensive. Charlyne and Michael, on the other hand, are both such thoroughly likable people that I had no problem comprehending that they see something in one another.
The film’s documentary style is a bit familiar, but the filmmakers do what they can to inject some life into it via some cute, Gondry-esque dioramas. Charlyne is an entertaining interviewer, appearing just as playful and naive as the children she questions at a playground, and as the director, Jake M. Johnson is convincing as an artist dead-set on completing his masterpiece, no matter the means of getting there.
In the end, “Paper Heart” seems to argue that true love is an unfilmable concept. It’s a peculiar thesis for well, you know, a film. Although this faux documentary doesn’t add any insight to the study of romance that a seven year old girl couldn’t conjure up on her own, Charlyne Yi’s infectious personality makes the movie an irresistible ride.
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