Paper Heart

In this slippery bit of postmodern playfulness, Yi plays Charlyne Yi, comedian and actor, who is making a documentary about love, a concept in which she does not believe (Awww). In the course of making the doc, Yi meets Michael Cera (played, natch, by Cera) and the two start hanging out and flirting like a pair of awkward puppies. While Yi fervently denies it’s a romance, doc director Nick (Johnson, who must feel bad to be the only guy in the movie not playing a version of himself) knows enough to keep the cameras rolling, no matter what.

If the idea of real-life couple Yi and Cera making a mockumentary sounds all charming and hip and ironic and shit, have at it. We wavered between wanting to throw up at the cutesy-wootsiness of Cera and Yi’s courtship and wanting to hit someone, anyone, involved. To give you an idea of how clever it gets, at one point Yi uses paper dolls to act out a section of the story in full-on Michel Gondry mode. With her odd laugh and aggressive self-effacement, Yi has a sort of anti-charisma and nerdiness that some people apparently find irresistible. Cera ditto. We’ve liked both of them in other things, but this may have ruined them both forever for us.

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