Chattanooga Pulse

Reality and fantasy, documentary and fiction are all a blur in this week’s Arts and Education Council Independent Film Series pick.  Paper Heart is a very independent film made mostly by people under 25.   A short and sweet little experiment in the dynamics of love, the film looks to be about as multilayered as love itself.

Paper Heart is the story of Charlyne Yi who, like many disappointed females inhabiting romantic comedies this past year, doesn’t believe in love.  We encountered another version of her a few months ago in 500 Days of Summer, a film that also had its premiere and won awards at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

But whereas Summer Finn in 500 Days remained content for a while without love in her life, Charlyne Yi feels as if she must go on a cross-country quest to understand the funny phenomenon.

And with that, she grabs a filmmaker friend named Nick and they head off on a massive documentary project in which they talk to ministers, divorce lawyers, happily (and unhappily) married couples, chemists, a group of kids on a playground, and more.

So determined is she to find an exact definition of love, Charlyne fails to notice that she is actually falling in love with one of her interviewees: Michael Cera (Arrested Development, Juno), a charming young man who has taken an interest in her.

Paper Heart moves back and forth between reality and fantasy many times—you’ll see the literal reason for the film’s title when you watch the film.  Treading in the footsteps of When Harry Met Sally, that classic of all romantic comedies, the film mingles its original material with, in the words of Charlyne Yi, “real doc footage of real interview with real subjects.”

“Everybody had such incredible stories,” said one of the crew members.  “We would go into someone’s home, take over their living room for a day and ask them these unbelievably personal questions…and they’d really get into it.”

Many of the narrative elements of Paper Heart are improvised within a story outline penned by Charlyne Yi herself, and this is where it gets confusing.  Because the film is a pseudo-documentary, many of the actors play themselves inside the framework of Charlyne’s documentary—meaning the cast and crew are all evident in the movie.

“We knew that some people would be a little bit confused,” said the film’s director Nick Jasenovec, “but we also found that part of it sort of exciting and interesting—maybe [the audience will never] know what’s real and what isn’t.”

“Sometimes we didn’t tell the cameraman what we were going to do so that he’d actually be capturing it for the first time and even be caught off guard,” said Yi. “It wasn’t about how pretty the camera shots were, but about making it feel natural.”

“The documentary stuff is all real,” said Jake Johnson, who plays the film’s “director”, “and as Charlyne is going around the country interviewing people on love, we create a story where she potentially finds love and see how making a movie about love affects her relationship.”

In addition to playing themselves, much of the cast and crew knew each other and had close friendships before the film started.  “It’s hard to fake any sort of chemistry,” said Jasenovec.  “We were all friends and we had to ask each other to really take a chance on an idea that could’ve turned out to be a disaster.”

Whether it’s a disaster or masterpiece, Paper Heart has won the affections of film festivals and viewers all across the country.  It comes down to the Bijou this weekend and might provide an answer to all your questions about love.

Maybe.

Paper Heart
Directed by Nicholas Jasenovec
Starring Charlyne Yi, Michael Cera, Jake M. Johnson
Rated PG-13
Running time: 88 minutes