Indie films sure love odd, emotionally damaged characters. First-time filmmakers Kieran & Michelle Mulroney throw their lot into the mix with Paper Man, which started as a script they workshopped at the Sundance Institute.
Jeff Daniels plays Richard Dunn, an author struggling to write his second novel, a book about the extinction of the heath hens. His wife (Lisa Kudrow), a successful vascular surgeon, rents him a cottage in a seaside town in Long Island to give him a chance to clear his writer's block and a break from their rocky marriage. However, Dunn spends most of his time wallowing in self-pity and talking to his childhood imaginary friend, Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds), a garishly-clad superhero. He also builds a couch out of copies of his first novel and rides around on a children's bike because it's all so wacky. Dunn bumps into the resident brooding teenager in Abby (Emma Stone), who has a mopey best friend (Kieran Culkan) and a Neanderthal for a boyfriend (Hunter Parrish). He hires Abby to be his babysitter for the night, despite the fact that he has no kids. When Abby learns the truth, she shrugs it off as well as any form of common sense. And thus begins a strange and platonic friendship between two fellow outsiders.
Paper Man is like a patchwork cobbling of Lost in Translation with a 21st century hipster version of Harvey. It's filled with indie movie clichés like the quirky, paper-cut title sequence and the Elliot Smith-esque, sullen guitar score. Daniels is solid in the lead, but he's already portrayed the stunted, intellectual writer in The Squid and the Whale and The Answer Man. We're supposed to feel for his crumbling marriage, but it's a difficult proposition to sympathize with a couple of whiny, well-off Manhattanites. Emma Stone basically plays the Kat Dennings/Olivia Thilrby role. To her credit, she brings a warmth and soulfulness to an ironically paper thin and stereotypical character.
Ryan Reynolds certainly looks the part of a superhero with his bleached blonde hair and goofy looking tights. He does his best, but the Captain Excellent scenes are just a car wreck. They are just astoundingly unfunny and simply shoehorned into the narrative. He could have easily been cut from the picture, if not for the fact that the Mulroneys deemed it necessary to add another eccentric layer to their film.
Paper Man deserves to be tossed into the recycling bin. It recycled ideas from better movies without capturing any sense of raw emotion.
Rating: * ½
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