Paper Heart is a "love" story. It is a movie that follows the main character as she is making a documentary about love. It is a movie about a fake documentary. If that makes any sense. It follows Nick and Charlyne (the Asian stoner girlfriend from Knocked Up) as they embark on a quest across America to make a documentary to document what exactly "love" is. Along the way they interview real ministers, happily married couples, chemists, romance novelists, divorce lawyers, a group of children and more to determine the definition and perhaps even experience the mysterious emotion of love. Eventually, Michael Cera, playing himself, becomes the object of her affection. And the movie goes from being just a documentary about what love really is, to also documenting the makings of a loving relationship. It weaves together reality and fantasy, and as I said earlier, it combines elements of documentary and traditional storytelling to get at modern romance.
The movie is filmed documentary style with a handheld camera which gives it a real feeling. Kind of like you are there. And since the actors are playing "themselves" you feel like you actually get to know what Charlyne Yi and Michael Cera are like in real life.
The reason indie films are indie films are because they are not made to make the "general audience" happy. They are made to make a certain type of audience happy. Sometimes that certain type is a very small type and sometimes its more broad. This one I think appeals to a more broad audience. It is a documentary about love. You hear many opinions about love. So if you like documentaries, I think you will like that aspect of the story. If you like love stories, you will like that aspect. If you like both, you will definitely like this story. But be forewarned, there isn't a lot of action, mostly interviews with people about love, and watching two awkward young people fall in love. There isn't a ton of humor or some huge falling out or dramatic entrances and exits. It is a real story or at least feels that way. Real life doesn't have an overly handsome cad confessing his love to an overly beautiful girl in the middle of a crowded room interrupting some totally important event, and this movie doesn't have that. It is a happy movie, with happy parts but some sad ones too. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, but if you are one that needs to be constantly stimulated by some crazy, zany action to enjoy a movie, then you won't like this one. If you like to see something different every once in a while, then you will really like this one, and walk away with a smile on your face.
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