Review of Paper Heart (2009) by Jennifer S — 02 May 2010

Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera star in this partially fake documentary about love. Does love exist? How do you know if you're in love? Yi claims that she has never been in love and never will be. She sets out to make a documentary, asking average people across the country about their experiences with love. Along the way, she meets Michael Cera and starts to like him...but the ever-present camera threatens to destroy their relationship.

The thing about Cera and Yi's relationship is that it's not "real" in this movie, although the two did have a real relationship in real life--but their scenes in Paper Heart are scripted. Nothing wrong with that, although I think a straight-up documentary on love would have been less gimmicky than the "Omigosh it's really happening" fakery of what Paper Heart became.

Also, I don't really click with Yi's style. She's a comedian playing the part of the nasally-voiced naif. I find her irritating and dull, which makes the movie (well, the parts she's in)...irritating and dull. The most interesting part of the movie are when Yi lets the people she interviews talk.