Paper Heart English Movie
Cast & Crew
Director:Nicholas Jasenovec
Writers (WGA):Nicholas Jasenovec (written by)
Charlyne Yi (written by)
Genre:Comedy
Theatrical Release:8/7/2009
Charlyne Yi ... Charlyne Yi
Michael Cera ... Michael Cera
Jake M. Johnson ... Nicholas Jasenovec
Sarah Baker
Matthew Bass
Matthew Craig
Demetri Martin
Reviews
Charlyne Yi does not believe in love. Or so she says. Well, at the very least, she doesn’t believe in fairy-tale love or the Hollywood mythology of love, and her own experiences have turned her into another modern-day skeptic. Charlyne embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn’t fully understand. As she and her good friend Nick search for answers and advice about love, Charlyne talks with friends and strangers, scientists, bikers, romance novelists, and children. They each offer diverse views on modern romance, as well as various answers to the age-old question: does true love really exist? Then, shortly after filming begins, Charlyne meets a boy after her own heart: Michael Cera. As their relationship develops on camera, her pursuit to discover the nature of love takes on a fresh new urgency. Charlyne risks losing the person she finds closest to her heart.
Paper Heart follows Nick and Charlyne on a cross-country journey to document what exactly "love" is. Interviewing ministers, happily married couples, chemists, romance novelists, divorce lawyers, a group of children and more, the determined young girl attempts to find definition and perhaps even experience the mysterious emotion. But as they travel across the United States and even venture to "The City of Love" her pessimistic denial may hinder her chances at finding real happiness.
Charlyne Yi embarks on a quest across America to make a documentary about the one subject she doesn't fully understand: Love. Michael Cera becomes the object of her affection. Weaving together reality and fantasy, Paper Heart combines elements of documentary and traditional storytelling to bring a fresh perspective to the modern romance
There may be a slight correction in order, to that axiom about the two inevitable components of human existence being death and taxes, with the addition to that list of love. Or at least the elusive quest for that ecstatic state of mind, as detailed in the simultaneously whimsical, affectionate and nutty pseudo-doc, Paper Heart.
Though the twist of choice here, a female rather than a male who can't seem to get in the mood for romance, is rapidly becoming the norm in films, if the current movie season is any indication. At least four other movies feature perplexed, infatuation-immune women: The Proposal, (500) Days Of Summer, Management, and I Hate Valentines Day. So what's up with that, girlfriends.
Young filmmaker Charlyne Yi doubles up here as a fictional character by the same name in a deep funk over her failure to detect any urge in herself to fall in love, and also as herself, a roving reporter wandering cross-country to interrogate assorted happy lovers and and self-important love gurus on the subject. Meanwhile, there's a mock romance centerpiece in which Superbad's super-nerd Michael Cera also turns up and hits on Charlyne, sending her into anxious fantasy dating denial.
And interspersed along the way, are all sorts of authentic, however eccentric, grassroots dissertations on the anatomy of love. Including Vegas matrimony; biker bar love deconstructed as 'thirty minutes in the back seat'; trying on a rack of wedding gowns for size; scientific mavens breaking down that euphoric urge into chemical brain matter and molecules; and unrequited animal attraction at a local zoo.
In case this may sound like an awful lot of incongruous scraps for director and on-location, usually baffled commentator Nicholas Jasenovec to load into a camera, the final product, miraculously, does comes together in mostly seamlessly kooky, if hardly conventional ways. Charlyne and her scruffy, hoodie clad tomboyish, unlikely no-frills leading lady persona essentially sneaks up and grabs audience hearts with a self-effacing charm that is impossible to resist. A little like, say, the enigmatic power of love.
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