The art of awkward goes too far with Paper Heart, the quasi non-fiction narrative in which comedian Charlyne Yi travels the countryside interviewing The People about love, while simultaneously being courted by (Yi’s real-life boyfriend) Michael Cera. Though fascinating in the ways in which it shades the lines separating the “real” from the obviously scripted (especially in the beautiful, inventive puppet animations dramatizing the documentary stories), Yi’s allegedly actual crises of romantic faith come off as contrived from the get go, suffer further thanks to the performer’s total lack of dramatic range, and resolve themselves in a programmatic ending that’s completely unearned.

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Way back in November, a Hollywood Reporter Sundance prognostication story alerted the world to Paper Heart, a “part-documentary, part-scripted comedy” starring Michael Cera and his real-life girlfriend Charlyne Yi. The trade said the film’s sales agents were hoping “to limit advance word, presumably in the hopes of making a splash a la Sundance phenom Napoleon Dynamite.”

Said sales agents must have been really upset that the Reuters-syndicated trade wrote a big story about the movie weeks before the festival lineup was even announced, thus ensuring that this project previously known to virtually no one would not only suddenly become the hottest ticket of the festival, but that its extreme hotness would be telegraphed in publications potentially read by the suburban teenagers who will make up its target post-Sundance ticket-buying audience. Let’s all shake our fists in frustrated solidarity: darn you, Hollywood Reporter!

Anyhow, now that the cat’s out of the bag and Paper Heart is en route to its big Saturday night premiere at the Racquet Club, the question on everyone’s minds is this: Who is this young lady who has landed Hollywood’s Most Eligible Bachelor Best Known For His Role in A Comedic Teenage Incest Subplot?

Her YouTube channel has some answers.

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