Mostly paper thin

I'm guessing that actor Michael Cera and comedian/performance artist Charlyne Yi are perfect for each other: both project a dubious combination of passive, geeky, and not as clever as they think they are qualities that likely contribute to their being a happy couple but just might fall a little short in assuring an entertaining movie experience. Or, at least that's what's occurring to me after watching Cera and Yi in director Nicholas Jasenovec's Paper Heart, recently out on DVD.

To be clear, Paper Heart, which (if I understand things correctly) is a sort of fictionalized, mock documentary version of Cera and Yi's actual courtship, is watchable, and occasionally moving and funny. But too often it's like spending too much time with your best friends' college-age kids: they're perfectly fine to talk to for a few minutes when they wander into your dinner party with their parents, but ultimately you just want to get back to your adult conversation over your nice cabernet.

Incidentally, the moving parts of Paper Heart come from the several interviews Ms. Yi conducts with actual couples (as well as one divorced guy still pining over his ex-wife), which communicate some genuine wisdom and insight about the nature of love and true connection with another human being. The material involving Cera and Yi doesn't do that so much. But again, maybe that's a generation gap thing; the issues and discoveries that are important and new to these two young people are things many of us older viewers have gone through eighteen times before and aren't quite so compelling to watch now. Of course, this observation won't apply as much to younger viewers.

Paper Heart looks and sounds fine on the standard DVD I watched. A variety of extra features pretty much give you more of what's in the movie, so you'll probably like or dislike them as much as you liked or disliked the movie.

Myself, I found Paper Heart to be mildly engaging and somewhat moving, but not worth a major expense or effort to see. If you especially like Michael Cera and/or Charlyne Yi, you may feel more charitable toward the movie. But for the rest of you, my advice is to buy it cheap or rent it for an evening and you'll likely not complain too much.