Gossip Sauce Sundance Report: Paper Heart

What do you get when you mix Juno and The Hills?

Paper Heart, is a mockumentary/documentary written by and starring Charlyne Yi, an LA based performance artist, occasional actress and rumored girlfriend of Michael Cera, the film’s other star, who tries to uncover what love is, how you find it and if it’s even real, with the help of her friend, the film's director and co-writer, Nicholas Jasenovec (played by Jake Johnson).

Aggressively quirky and practiced in the art of hipster perfection, Yi is adorably awkward and spazzy, the perfect counter point to a film devoted to a concept that could easily become schmaltzy. While the movie loses its footing when it ventures into a more theatrical narrative, it shines when Yi takes the cameras on the road to ask civilians about what love means to them.

From Vegas wedding chapels to Texas divorce courts to an Atlanta playground (our personal favorite), Paper Heart is at its best when it lets real life take the driver’s seat. Reminiscent of the couple's segments in When Harry Met Sally, Yi interviews people who reveal the moment they found, lost or realized true love and those stories are re-enacted with DIY puppets and sets (like a blue Saran Wrap river or a brown paper bag puppet face) in a quaint, charming, off-beat way.

Paper Heart is undeniably funny, sweet and disarming, much like Yi, it simply would have been better without any manipulation. We don’t want to watch The Hills: Hipster Heaven. Who needs to create storylines when you’ve got Harley-riding Oklahoma barflies explaining that real love is the family you find at a tavern or a romance novelist describing what readers crave?

We want to love Paper Heart…but we’re afraid we can’t commit to feelings that strong.

But we would still really like to be friends.