Paper Heart
Paper Heart features barely known stand up artist Charlyne Yi as someone denying the existence of romantic love yet trying to get some understanding of what it is. To do this she and her producer Nicholas Jasenovec pack a film crew across the USA in the dead of winter doing interviews about different perspectives on love. This “documentary” supposedly takes on a life of its own when Judd Apitow gangster Michael Cera takes an interest in Yi and she begins to have feelings for him. Any legitimate cuteness gleaned from this is negated by the fact that Cera and Li actually began a relationship long before this film even got underway. Looking at the credits we see that Jasenovec is really played by actor Jake M. Johnson and he’s not the only character who turns out to be a portrayal and not a real person. Yi doesn’t fancy herself as a comedienne but rather an artist and musician and her providing the soundtrack is somewhat of a testament to that. Giving talking heads some much needed embellishment provided by animation of bailing wire and sack cloth dolls on paper mache sets might also give credence to Yi’s creativity except they are credited to someone else. Paper Heart probably looked a lot better on paper but on screen it looks like a calculated ruse that was a quick fix for some stranded footage in need of cohesion.