PAPER MAN
Written & Directed by Kieran Mulroney & Michele Mulroney
Produced by Guymon Casady, Richard N. Gladstein, Ara Katz & Art Spigel
Released by MPI Media Group
USA. 110 min. Rated R
With Jeff Daniels, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Lisa Kudrow, Hunter Parrish & Kieran Culkin
 

One of the worst turns of 20^th century postmodern fiction was the use of the author as the main character of the novel. The narcissistic bend inwards quickly became one of the most boring paths that could be taken. As existentially terrifying as the blank page may be, writing—especially writing as it’s become codified in academia—is essentially leisurely and bourgeois. The turn towards the writer as the protagonist has created a narrative arc that is fairly flat. Who cares other than the writer if he completes his manuscript? While various novelists and filmmakers have managed to use this conceit to focus on the craft of writing (John Barth, Charlie Kaufman), there is still a surfeit of writers who believe that writer’s block is A Dramatic Event.

While writer’s block only serves as framework for Paper Man, the directorial debut of screenwriters Michele and Kieran Mulroney, it is so metaphorically present that it infects the entire film. Richard Dunn (Jeff Daniels) is a stilted man-child and failed novelist with an imaginary friend, Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds). Secluded on Montauk to work on his second novel, his already-strained relationship with his wife (Lisa Kudrow), a successful surgeon in the city who only visits on weekends, becomes even more stretched. On a bike ride designed for procrastination, Dunn strikes up a conversation with a local teen, Abby (Emma Stone), and the two become friends. With these pieces in place, Paper Man then spends its time winding its way to the logical conclusion this setup aims at.

While the writer’s block plot is clichéd at best, the main problem with Paper Man is that it’s beset by odd tonal shifts. The film seems unable to decide whether it’s a quirky, indie comedy or an honest, dramatic film. Instead of choosing a direction, it haphazardly bounds between the two. Dunn’s odd little quirks are faux-charming, and his obsession with his childhood imaginary friend comedically insane, fine in a silly comedy, but it feels off here, too jokey, especially when placed against the moments of real emotion between Dunn and his wife as the plot reaches its climax. While films don’t have to be thematically or tonally coherent, they need to be able to shift effortlessly between the different regions so that it feels like complimentary parts of the same movie. Paper Man, however, feels too fractured and too busy. The weird segments, like with Captain Excellent, get short shrift and thus feel incomplete, while the meat of the film—the emotional relationships—get sidelined by the quirk. Despite the plotting and tonal problems, there are some rather strong performances that make Paper Man worth watching.

However, due to the major age difference, Abby and Dunn’s relationship is so inherently creepy that it permeates all parts of the film. Because it’s so prevalent and filled with romantic implications, even if those implications are never realized, nothing can really justify it or explain it away. This seemed very obviously like a major stumbling block that the Mulroneys struggled with, as character after character comments on the odd pairing. If Dunn is supposed to be the hero of the piece, if his struggle to become a substantial person is something to root for, then this unpleasant relationship undercuts that quest. Andrew Beckerman
May 1, 2010