Paper Heart puts love in a new light

Charlyne Yi doesn’t believe in love. There’s no real reasoning behind it; she hasn’t experienced any earth-shattering breakup or betrayal. She’s simply come to the conclusion that love is a figment of the imagination, an element of fairy tales and romance novels that doesn’t relate to the real world.

So along with friend and director Nick Jasenovec, she goes on a road trip through the U.S.A. talking with all kinds of peoples, getting their perceptions on this thing called love.

However, once Yi meets Michael Cera (Juno), all her beliefs on love’s existence are put on the line. Nick begins to realize that the story is becoming less about others’ ideas on love, and more about Yi and Cera’s relationship.

During Yi and Jasenovoc’s journey, we meet everyone from seven-year old kids on the playground, to a gay couple, to a husband and wife who have been together for 50 years. Yi even talks to scientists about the raw factual evidence on the heart and the brain, outside of purely feelings. It’s sweet to see how, though people may be completely different, in a broad sense they have the same definition of love: a magical experience that makes you view the world through a different lens.

Yi’s diorama-style animation of couples’ stories makes the film even more mesmerizing. Her primitive paper stick figures and cellophane rivers are a cute quirk that you learn to expect at the end of each segment.

The film paints an honest portrayal of love through the eyes of the average Joes and Janes we encounter in everyday life. The message of the movie seems to be that love comes in many forms. Yi, at first a doubter of its existence, begins to open her eyes because of her new experiences and the people she meets.

It’s not a typical documentary, nor is it an example of high-quality filmmaking. What Paper Heart is though, is real. It feels like Yi could have been taping in your kitchen or backyard, and often times that’s exactly what she does. Love is no longer something drawn up by film writers and played by beautiful actors and actresses who seem nothing like us. Yi takes love for what it is, and it develops into a far better story than any romantic comedy Hollywood could ever create.