A little documentary from the awkward asian chick that was in 5 minutes of Knocked Up. Also dated Michael Cera, according to the gossip. That relationship (or a fake version of it) plays a major role in the movie.
Charlyne Yi plays herself (not all characters do, so it's worth noting) in this comedic look at love. She starts the movie by proclaiming she doesn't believe in love and has never loved anyone. The documentary is about her search for love. For reasons unknown Charlyne and her director Nicholas Jasenovic, played by Jake Johnson (told you), travel the country talking to random people about their relationships. One of the cuter elements is Charlyne's paper craft version of the interviewees' stories. In-between trips to Anywhere, USA Charlyne meets Michael Cera at a party and he starts courting Charlyne. Through most of the movie she denies her feelings for Cera while obviously falling in love. Or at least my definition of love.
The definition of love is the theme of the movie and in the end Charlyne either doesn't get it or doesn't want to get it. By most accounts she's in love with Cera, which is painfully obvious when the crew travels to Paris to wrap the film. The trip is originally planned by the director so Yi and Cera can have a romantic weekend on the film's dime, but Cera has already ended the relationship by that point. Yi spends days in Paris walking the streets and lookign incredibly morose. When Nic finally pushes her too far, she claims not to be sad about losing Cera, but being sad that she can't make herself love him the way he wants. Which doesn't make a lot of sense. Isn't wanting to love another person for that person's sake love?
It's a short, straight-forward movie so there's not much else to talk about. We are left to wonder how much of the movie is real and how much is staged. Even if it is an actual documentary, the documentarian has no problem inserting himself into the story and manipulating things for his own ends, so he's not a good documentarian.
Overall it's cute and moderately entertaining. Cera saves it in some ways, providing some of the better scenes in the movie.
One problem. Not a dealbreaker for most people, but I got hung up on wondering how they chose some of these interview subjects. Some random divorcee? Random high school sweethearts? Random gay couple? Did they put an ad in the local paper for these people?
First Viewing: 2+2+2+2+2 = 10