His Movie Reviews

So another Blockbuster run results in another small indie movie.  This time we ended up with, Paper Heart, a documentary / romantic comedy starring Michael Cera and Charlyne Yi. Actually, I am not even sure what this movie really is, a documentary, a romantic comedy, a drama?  It is definitely filmed documentary style, yet with half of the movie being a fictional story, for me it loses its documentary cred.  Basically the story of the film revolves around Charlyne Yi and her inability to fall in love.  So from this, they decide to film her life and go on adventures to figure out what love is and if she is in fact capable of it.  Interspersed throughout the film are small stories from people around the United States of how they fell in love or what they thought love was.  They are small anecdotes to how they first met or their favorite memories.   And for me, this is the real charm of the film, the real-life wonders that love creates for us – our memories and adventures through life. This should have been the film’s focus. But, they overshadow these bits with an awkward and fictional love story between Charlyne and Michael Cera.  I mean, come on, can’t they find an actual person Charlyne might be interested in, not some fake romance?  They play it off as this bit of trying to capture the protagonists first discovery of love, yet with no real chemistry between the two of them, it comes off cheap and stupid.  Granted, I know before going into the film that this ‘love story’ was fake and created only for the film…I would hate to find out out later and learn you were duped. This whole fake documentary part made me feel like this was the Blair Witch Project of romantic comedies.  They really want you to believe it’s real, yet it’s all a lie. The only good part of the fictional story and an important aspect of love that I think the film should have focused on is the love of friends and how this film crew really worked together as a family to accomplish this film.  There are some wonderful heartfelt moments between the director and Charlyne that made me believe they were truly good friends.  They cared about each other, and that in itself, is a great type of love. However, they stayed true to their story and follwed their fictional story to the end.  Overall, this movie was kind of a disappoint for me.  The goal of the movie was huge, and trying to get a grasp on what love really is seems insurmountable to me – doomed to fail from the beginning.

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