Paper Heart, or, let the dating start!

Paper Heart: documoviery starring charlyne yi and michael cera and its director

...because when lacking any idea for the blog title, always go for the rhyme.

i liked this. a lot. two thumbs and a couple toes up. i thought maybe the puppets were a little too cute, and the wonder years footage in the middle was maybe a little too emphatic, but i'm pushing myself here to find something bad. i really liked it--and as usual, when i like something, i find it difficult to think of anything to say about it.

what can i say? usually i object to characterizations that don't ring true and plot developments that aren't genre-ically sound; paper heart had neither of these problems. the storyline went all the way through (it kebabed itself...hmm); the characters were captured really nicely. there's a moment when the charlyne character is listening to the story about the dead boyfriend of one of the gay guys and he's making a joke about it and her face is so full of empathy and sadness, it kind of tells the whole story of what makes her resist love in that moment.

it's possible that i watch movies weirdly. i mean, there are things like her going on the biker's motorcycle that, if one were as paranoid as i can sometimes be, one could see as hooks to get the viewer, to make him or her think that he or she is participating in a cute movie with all its alternative trappings. but i don't think that stuff is just for show, i guess. i mean, while she's riding on the motorcycle, we see her, you know? "charlyne" gets revealed to us. it's sensitive of the director to be able to capture her, and the people he's filming, without making it exploitative. he switches valences sometimes, but that's because she's the focus of the film, i think, anyway--and she's got layers. maybe i'm seeing something that's not there, but i don't think so.

note that i'm not focusing over-much on the reality/fiction thing, because that whole argument annoys me. i am trying to be cautious, however (notice the quotes around charlyne above? yeah, i learned that in lit class! it's a technique. i know it, pretty much, yeah).

as might be inferred, i identified pretty strongly with the whole discomfort-with-love thing, which makes me distrust my own judgment. maybe i should just distrust my own judgment with greater frequency--or maybe i should trust it more in this case.

hell, i'll go for option b. see paper heart! it's great!