Paper Heart

Reviewed by J. Lunden on September 9, 2009

Charlyne Yi does not believe in love, at least that’s what the version of herself she plays in her quasi-documentary Paper Heart would have you believe. More specifically, the Yi in Paper Heart is certain that she cannot love. But perhaps that sad notion is simply an issue of a skewed perception. Maybe she’s been harboring a delusion about love, a beautiful lie fed to her by movies and childhood fables of handsome princes and their coma-ending kisses. To answer these questions, Yi and a film crew, led by director Nicholas Jasenovec, set out across the country to interview a strange cross-section of true believers. These interviews range from a Texan divorcé, whose near-death experience shaped his perception of true love, to a Vegas Elvis impersonator who spins wild yarns of impromptu vows. With each interview, Yi is given a story of love for her consideration. Perhaps in order to process them through terms she can understand, Yi takes each unique tale of love and whimsically animates them with peculiar-but-wonderful cardboard puppets.

You may remember Yi from her small roll in Knocked Up, or perhaps you’ve seen her performance art/stand-up work in L.A. Yi is adorably left-of-center. She hides herself behind big glasses and under frumpy sweat clothes. And she’s a basket of self-conscious nervous ticks and giggles. These idiosyncrasies find a kindred spirit of sorts when Yi happens across actor Michael Cera (Arrested Development) while at a party. The two begin a relationship that quickly becomes the central element of Jasenovec’s documentary. But young love is threatened when Jasenovec’s cameras become a malignant intrusion in the relationship. Suddenly, Yi, the girl who cannot love, is faced with a real conundrum.

But, wait. Paper Heart is a ruse, a playful deception. To begin with, the director, Nicholas Jasenovec, is actually played by actor Jake M. Johnson. And Cera and Yi were already dating when filming began. So, much of the film is scripted, though the actors do such a convincing job, it’s often hard to spot when reality becomes orchestrated. This approach makes Paper Heart something of an anomaly. We’re forced to deceide whether the film’s search for love is genuine—or if we’ve been duped.

Personally, I think it’s a bit of both. It’s a joke about the innumerous notions and irreconcilable definitions of love, and the absurdity of looking for a singular truth in that mess. And the punch line, of course, is that, when considering love, we want to be fooled. We don’t want to believe that love is simply a matter of firing synapses and pumping adrenaline. We need the fairytale, no matter how painfully aware we are of its intrinsic fallacy.

Paper Heart also functions as a rather astute statement about a generation that understands the world through gestures of cynicism and irony, with the idea of “true love” being something The Princess Bride invented. So, what better way to examine these issues than by reverse-engineering their own neo-post-ironic construction?

In the end, no matter how many stories of love Yi hears, no matter how many scripted scenes of awkward love she enacts, we know that the question will go unanswered; we don’t even know if her specific question is genuine. Perhaps there was some original intention to actually film Yi’s quest for understanding, perhaps not. It doesn’t really matter, as I think the conclusions would be the same.

Regardless, Yi’s experiences in Paper Heart (whether genuine or invented) are thoughtful, sweet, and often very funny. In one scene, Yi and Cera walk hand-in-hand along a beach, the sun setting behind them, painting the shore a romantic tangerine. Jasenovec runs out, bullhorn in hand, making a suggestion that Cera put his arm around Yi. “No, this is good,” Cera explains. “Oh, okay,” Jasenovec says as he runs back out of frame, and then to his cameraman: “They didn’t go for it.”