Paper Heart

Paper 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."

2 stars

I've read that the makers of this film are calling it a "hybrid documentary," since it blends traditional documentary with fictional story telling. A good idea in theory, but hard to pull off. It's a thin and awkward line, one that Charlyne does not walk well, and it's really obvious which scenes are staged and which are real. Michael Cera is famous enough now to be distracting rather than acceptable in his 'role' as Charlene's love interest.

My favorite parts were the real documentary - interviewing people about love (a middle-aged divorcee, a biker gang, a couple who married when they were 17). There's the straight-forward conversation, followed by a cute and entertaining puppet version of an anecdote. Trust me, it sounds weird but it works. 

If this was an honest documentary in the style of This American Life, it would have been enjoyable. Or if it was a fictional movie about a girl making a documentary, it would have been enjoyable. But trying to do both at the same time just doesn't work.