Writer(s): Ilina Schlesinger
Starring: Ilina Schlesinger, Ryan Hansen, Margaret Cho and Rebecca Rittenhouse
Good on Paper is somewhat of a misnomer, because it’s actually kind of weird on paper: A comedian meets an unattractive man, hangs out a lot with unattractive man, falls in love with unattractive man, and then finds out she was duped by unattractive man. It’s almost like an anti-romance; a movie where love isn’t the endgame, but rather a small part of the journey.
It was written by Ilina Schlesinger - a comedian in real life - and was also based off of an actual incident that happened to her. She changes her name to Andrea Singer, for the purpose of the story, and presumably also changes the name of the man who would win her heart under false pretenses.
Said unattractive man (those are her words, not mine) is Dennis, a nerdy hedge fund manager who ends up in the seat next to Angela during a plane trip. He recognizes her immediately, and the two hit it off during the plane ride. This eventually leads to a long-term, platonic friendship…until Dennis wants to take things further. While Andrea is initially against the idea, one drugged up night on ‘shrooms suddenly changes her mind, and the two start a whirlwind romance.
It plays out kind of like a Lifetime thriller with a dash of Hallmark romance thrown in, only with more moments of (intentional) comedy and less of a focus on the thriller aspects. The characters aren’t ever really in any danger, but the gradual revealing of who Dennis really is takes up virtually the whole running time. It’s like one small section of a Lifetime thriller dragged out to feature length.
But it’s not quite as bad as that description makes it sound, thanks largely to Ilina, who is great in the lead role (as well she should be given the personal attachment she had to the film), as well as her supporting cast, including Margaret Cho as Ilina’s best friend, who’s the first to suspect something isn’t right with good ol’ Dennis.
But I was a little surprised - and disappointed - at just how straightforward it all is. This is a personal story that’s almost too bizarre to be believable, and yet it’s buried underneath the typical tropes of a mystery/thriller. Thanks to Ilina’s screenplay, it’s never boring, but it’s also not terribly interesting; the way it’s presented here, it comes off as the kind of throwaway story you tell to your friends over dinner, instead of a story with actual meat and substance. It's like eating potato chunks with not enough seasoning: They're passable, but mostly just dry and not nearly as worthwhile as they could be.
I would have expected some personal flourishes to give it more of its own identity, but it all just builds up to an ending that seems almost too obvious and unsensational to be true. I guess it’s kind of refreshing that it’s (mostly) grounded in reality, so we don’t get any cheesy attempted murder scenes or pointless violence (aside from one mostly silly sequence near the end).
Instead, it's just a derivative film that borrows from several different genres, but pulls off none of them convincingly. If you want a romantic comedy, there's not enough of that here to satisfy you; if you want a mystery/thriller, that's confined mostly to the background and is largely predictable. The comedy is easily the strongest part - there are several scenes of genuine laughs - but the remainder of the story is shockingly flat.
RATING: 5.5/10
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