David O'ConnellPaper Heart
September 18th 2009 04:16
Blurring the line between documentary and comedy, Charlyne Yi and Nicholas Jasenovic's Paper Heart goes on the road to explore and, ideally, disprove the comedienne’s skeptical view of love. Initially, it’s difficult to assess how much of its content is real or fabricated and though it feels stretched out disproportionately to feature length, there is a winning simplicity attached to the film's admittedly thin premise.
Yi is an ardent disbeliever in the notion of eternal love, though she'd like nothing more than to be proven otherwise. She and her ‘director’ (played onscreen by actor Jake Johnson) decide that sampling the lives of everyday Americans about their experiences, and exploring the simple wisdom they’ve acquired along the way, might be an interesting means of forming a consensus.
To its detriment Paper Heart proves to be far removed from any penetrating examination of the topic, meandering off at every opportunity, such as when the minimal crew turn up at a party where actor Michael Cera - best known as the impregnator of Juno - appears. His introduction both exposes the film’s artificiality whilst providing a likeable, relatable ‘character’ to push the dubious narrative along, as well as camouflaging some of Yi’s more obvious deficiencies.
In more than one way, Yi is a sleight presence; in stature she looms like a toothpick in a room full of sparkling utensils, and though there’s an unkempt, tomboyish charm about her, she’s neither particularly funny in any abstract, edgy way, nor talented enough to make the whole concept sparkle with originality.
Some of the fleeting stories recounted are reasonably engaging, and turning a camera upon a playground full of children nearly always inspires a golden moment or two. Ultimately though there's not much meat on these bones even if, at under 90 minutes, the film is an amiable distraction and hard to actively dislike.
The inherent sweetness that keeps Yi and Cera circling one another like clueless puppies is certainly its most consistant source of amusement; but the lack of focus hurts the film’s ‘mockumentary’ ambitions, leaning as it does more towards a personal relationship quandary as it progresses.
Though straying somewhat from its original intention of making ordinary Americans the primary focus, the film earns marks at least for a bravura, though giddily absurd, re-imagined ending. Here, Yi puts her more outlandish storytelling talents to use with the visual aid of her crude, paper-cut representations of herself and Cera. As employed intermittently throughout the film to re-enact some of the more meaningful incidents of her subjects’ lives, there’s a kind of rough, juvenile charm attached to these segments.
So, even if the rich vein of insight Yi may have been hoping for begins evaporating long before any gentle, barely-perceptible push into a non-existent second gear, at least she goes out in a blaze of glory. Kind of.
The trailer can be found here.
Paper Heart opens in selected cinemas on Thursday Sept. 24
Yi is an ardent disbeliever in the notion of eternal love, though she'd like nothing more than to be proven otherwise. She and her ‘director’ (played onscreen by actor Jake Johnson) decide that sampling the lives of everyday Americans about their experiences, and exploring the simple wisdom they’ve acquired along the way, might be an interesting means of forming a consensus.
To its detriment Paper Heart proves to be far removed from any penetrating examination of the topic, meandering off at every opportunity, such as when the minimal crew turn up at a party where actor Michael Cera - best known as the impregnator of Juno - appears. His introduction both exposes the film’s artificiality whilst providing a likeable, relatable ‘character’ to push the dubious narrative along, as well as camouflaging some of Yi’s more obvious deficiencies.
In more than one way, Yi is a sleight presence; in stature she looms like a toothpick in a room full of sparkling utensils, and though there’s an unkempt, tomboyish charm about her, she’s neither particularly funny in any abstract, edgy way, nor talented enough to make the whole concept sparkle with originality.
Some of the fleeting stories recounted are reasonably engaging, and turning a camera upon a playground full of children nearly always inspires a golden moment or two. Ultimately though there's not much meat on these bones even if, at under 90 minutes, the film is an amiable distraction and hard to actively dislike.
Charlyne Yi, meet Michael Cera
The inherent sweetness that keeps Yi and Cera circling one another like clueless puppies is certainly its most consistant source of amusement; but the lack of focus hurts the film’s ‘mockumentary’ ambitions, leaning as it does more towards a personal relationship quandary as it progresses.
Though straying somewhat from its original intention of making ordinary Americans the primary focus, the film earns marks at least for a bravura, though giddily absurd, re-imagined ending. Here, Yi puts her more outlandish storytelling talents to use with the visual aid of her crude, paper-cut representations of herself and Cera. As employed intermittently throughout the film to re-enact some of the more meaningful incidents of her subjects’ lives, there’s a kind of rough, juvenile charm attached to these segments.
So, even if the rich vein of insight Yi may have been hoping for begins evaporating long before any gentle, barely-perceptible push into a non-existent second gear, at least she goes out in a blaze of glory. Kind of.
The trailer can be found here.
Paper Heart opens in selected cinemas on Thursday Sept. 24
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