Hey, folks. Capone in Chicago here, with a couple of films that are making their way into art houses around America this week or at least expanding to more theaters (maybe even taking up one whole screen at a multiplex near you. Enjoy…
PAPER HEART
Don't spend too much time attempting to figure out what's real and what's not in the spirited and funny creation Paper Heart, from actress/performance artist/musician/comedian Charlyne Yi and filmmaker Nicholas Jasenovec. Just assume that the interviews with people other than Charlyne are real, and that everything that happens with her is faked... more or less. The truth is that it's more fun to play the guessing game as the relatively unknown Yi (who had a couple very memorable scenes in Judd Apatow's KNOCKED UP) travels the country with Jake Johnson (playing Jasenovec, her director) and a small film crew, interviewing various people about the nature of love. Yi has convinced herself that she is incapable of love, and the journey she takes is an exercise in determining whether there are others out there like her (trust me, there aren't) and whether she might change her feelings on the subject of love and relationships.
The film takes the form of a documentary, but there are clearly large portions that are staged and/or improvised. Just before setting out across America, Yi meets a spindly young actor named Michael Cera (played by Michael Cera, in a bit of typecasting), and before she (or we) know it, the two start up a tentative relationship as the film is being made. The constant presence of the cameras certainly dampens some potentially romantic moments between the couple, and it's clear that Cera is bothered that the crew follows them everywhere, but that makes for some of the film's funniest moments. Bouncing from city to city, Yi interviews real people (as in, non-actors) who have a story to tell about the relationship they are presently in or out of. Rather than have us stare at talking heads during these stories, Yi brings to life each new story with a primitive, but somehow still elegant, puppet show that she performs. These are some of my absolute favorite and most charming scenes in Paper Heart, but the whole film exists almost as a dare that you not find everyone in it adorable on some level.
A big part of falling head over heels for PAPER HEART is figuring out whether Li's persona drives you batty or not. I think she's a riot, and she hangs around with a funny crowd. In preparation to hit the road, she interviews a few of her comedy friends about her dilemma, and we get a quick parade of familiar faces like Martin Starr and Seth Rogen who offer her advice and support. Ultimately, we look to Yi's fictional(?) relationship with Cera for clues as to whether Charlyne will ever exit her love funk. The two make absolute sense together, and Cera's under-the-breath delivery of some of the film's funniest lines killed me. I'm not sure the film works as an absolute guide to all things about love, but that's not what it's attempting to be. This is a movie about one odd and loveable woman, and her search for the truth about her own shortcomings of the heart. I was also really moved by what is clearly a real friendship between Yi and Johnson that serves as almost the second emotional centerpiece of the movie. In fact, some people may leave thinking Yi might have better luck with her fake director. I found both the real and the unreal of the small gem that is PAPER HEART equally entertaining and amusing.
ADAM
All of the signs that this movie from writer-director Max Mayer shouldn't work at all are right there in the plot synopsis. A handsome young man named Adam (Hugh Dancy, recently seen in CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC) with Asperger's Syndrome--a highly functional form of autism--has recently lost his caretaker father, and it's clear that Adam's sheltered lifestyle is at an end. He has a job that he can get to on his own, but basic stuff like buying food for himself are a little beyond him. Into the same New York apartment building moves a lovely young woman named Beth (Rose Byrne from "Damages" and KNOWING) who takes a strange liking to this oddly charming young fellow. And while the film goes to some pretty sad places during its course, for the most part Adam is a romantic comedy that takes both its characters seriously. The result is an emotionally satisfying little film that, for the most part, succeeds in avoiding the pitfalls of disease-of-the-week movies and rarely enters into any of the standard rom-com trappings.
The success of ADAM rests squarely in Mayer's hands. With only his second feature film (he's spent most of his career directing theater and a bit of TV), Mayer has done a surprisingly solid job of keeping the sentimentality at bay, which is not to say that he doesn't let the feelings loose when appropriate. It's fascinating to watch this bizarre courtship as Beth struggles to figure out Adam's behavioral shortcomings, and Adam attempts to pay close enough attention to Beth's words, since he's largely incapable of distinguishing or interpreting facial expressions, body language and other forms of non-verbal communication. To him, there's a big difference between someone saying, "I could use a hug" and "Adam, will you hug me."
As long as the film sticks to the story of this couple, I think it works. The problems begin when we meet Beth's parents, Peter Gallagher and Amy Irving, two fine actors stuck in a terrible subplot about Gallagher being under investigation for some white-collar crime nonsense. I get why Mayer thought these scenes might have been useful in informing us as to Beth's possible motivation for dating Adam (rebelling against her disapproving and apparently often-lying father), but the scenes are such a miscalculated distraction that they keep the movie from being great. On the other hand, Dancy has a couple of really nice scenes with Frankie Faison as Harlan, an old war buddy of Adam's father who has taken it upon himself to have lunch with Adam as often as possible, just to get the young man out of the house and to set him straight on a few life issues. Yes, Faison does seem to fulfill the role of the wise, older black man dishing out advice to the confused white kid, but Faison (perhaps best known from "The Wire" and all four Hannibal Lecter films) is so much fun to watch that I'm thinking of starting a fan club of one just to celebrate his abilities to make any film or TV show just a little bit better.
Even without the romance angle, I think Adam might have worked at a certain level just as an examination of what a strange and unique condition Asperger's is. Part of the film involves Adam getting fired from his job (for being too detail oriented in his work designing electronics for toys) and then attempting to prepare for his first-ever foray into the world of job interviews. But in the end, the film's core is about Adam's feelings for Beth, which are not as clear as you might think. The film wisely takes its conclusion seriously, unlike most romantic comedies, and truly asks us to consider what kind of future these two would have and what the true nature of their relationship would be if they moved forward. Dancy's performance is startlingly good. He plays Adam as a man whose every waking moment after his father dies is something new and terrifying, but it's clear he's desperate to learn how to function on his own. And it's just nice to see Byrne in a role where she's not under siege or duress, as she often is in her roles. She's a great actress and a great beauty, and it's nice to finally see her in a role that allows her to utilize both of these traits. ADAM isn't the rousing triumph it needs to be to capture the hearts and minds of all moviegoers, but I think people who have grown weary of the brainlessness of recent romantic cinema might find it a refreshing break from the formulaic garbage that has been flooding theaters of late.
-- Capone
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