Paper Heart
Overture Films | Release Date: August 7, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
54
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
11
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
Film ThreatJessica Baxter
Cera once again does his "Michael Cera thing." Personally, I love his "thing" but know it’s not for everyone, and I agree that it doesn’t always work contextually. But trust me, here it really works. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The movie's hide-and-seek attitude toward truth mirrors the intricacies of one lover getting to know another -- an arresting notion of the heart that's much more than paper-deep. Read full review
80
EmpireAngie Errigo
Adorable. Ad-or-able. It will melt even the coldest heart. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A quasi-documentary about love that is sweet, true and perhaps a little deceptive. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Enjoying this wondrous wisp of a something is easy, describing it is hard. Luckily, Charlyne Yi is an enchantress. Read full review
75
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Doesn't always have a clear path, but that is part of its meandering appeal. It asks if true love exists, then renders it a rhetorical question. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
At best, they entertain in a "people say the darndest things" kind of way. But they do support the notion that people still fall in love and find a way to make it work for a lifetime, which is about as happy an ending as you could wish for. Read full review
67
Portland OregonianMarc Mohan
Paper Heart isn't the most cloying instance of earnest indie quirk to emerge in the past few months, nor is it the most charming, but the mere fact that such a continuum exists is reason enough to worry. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
It's all kind of silly and amorphous, but the scenes between Yi and Cera, whether or not they were scripted, have a babes-in-the-wood loveliness. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
The movie’s a platypus: cute as the dickens but what the heck is it? Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
This movie may be sickly sweet, but it's harmless; and as a handcrafted antidote to a toxic toy story like "G.I.Joe," Paper Heart has healing properties. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJustin Lowe
A "hybrid documentary" that bemusedly blurs the line between fact and fiction. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
While Cera is adorable, Yi’s faux ­naiveté is overplayed and her philosophical musings are underwhelming. But you won’t soon forget the real-life couples she interviews. Read full review
50
VarietyDennis Harvey
There may be a fairly sharp line dividing those who find the whole delightfully odd, and those irked by what could be read as a faux childlike simplicity to the enterprise. Read full review
50
Village VoiceRobert Wilonsky
A documentary except when it's a mockumentary, this is all kinds of adorable and heartbreaking--the doc part, at least. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Kate Taylor
This breach with the audience does matter, for it is one thing to seduce your viewers and quite another to trick them. Love is all about trust, after all. Read full review
50
The New York TimesJeannette Catsoulis
Your enjoyment of Paper Heart will hinge almost entirely on your receptiveness to Ms. Yi and the extreme iteration of social awkwardness she represents. Read full review
50
New York PostKyle Smith
Paper Heart is like a really special five-minute YouTube clip that goes on for an hour and a half. Read full review
50
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Yi's self-regarding, ironic tone makes the whole thing feel like a setup, designed more as an indie-chic calling card than a sincere inquiry. Read full review
50
SalonSarah Hepola
At times, the relentless preciousness, the ironic distance, the posture of "We're just adorably like this" gets to be a little too much. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The end product feels trite and unfinished, with the romantic plot being awkwardly and unconvincingly shoehorned into a production that lacks focus. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's a neat, sweet experiment in meta-documentary filmmaking overall, but like Yi's own heart, it sabotages itself in the process and becomes another casualty of too-close scrutiny. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
This isn’t a movie. It’s a MySpace page. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
Unbearably twee mockumentary. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
A cute movie, a little too cute and a little too aware of its own cuteness. Read full review
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