The habitually cynical and mistrusting excepted, people are by and large quite willing to believe the best of someone else.
It makes sense – we want a world in which people are who they say they are, in which those in whom we placed our trust and with whom we work, play and love are the very people we know them to be.
While evolution may have bred a fight-or-flight response into us for both things, it seemingly does not extend to our impelling need to wholly and unconditionally trust others, an inclination that ends up costing Andrea (Iliza Shlesinger) quite a bit of her sanity and emotional stability in Good on Paper, directed by Kimmy Gatewood to a script by Sclesinger.
The film is a salutary tale that all that glitters is most definitely not relationship gold, although it does steep much of its cautioning in a wild and wacky delivery that most succeeds in what it’s shooting for but which sometimes loses it sway, uncertain about whether it’s creepy story about the dark side of humanity with more than a little of a movie-of-the-week stalker-y vibe or if it’s a wacky screwball comedy about the weird and strange things that can happen when you pursue love.
Mostly, it settles in the latter groove, buoyed by witty, sparkling and smartly-delivered dialogue, courtesy of Schlesinger and Margaret Cho, who plays her slightly-crazed bestie Margot who owns a bar in which many key scenes of Good on Paper are set, and who is the only person in Andrea’s life who senses that her friend’s new friend-turned-boyfriend Dennis (Ryan Hansen) is a scumbag of the lowest order.
The key thing in the narrative of course is that Andrea wants to believe that Dennis, whom she meets in first class on a flight back to Los Angeles from New York, where the wannabe actress has just left an unsuccessful audition, is the genial, sweet knight in shining armour he purports himself to be.
He certainly fits the part of Ideal Boyfriend to a tee, his life an immaculate distillation of everything you would possibly want a romantic partner to be.
In short order, he tells Andrea he went to Yale, is a hedge fund manager and has just settled on a house in Beverly Hills, a dream combination that comes complete with a model girlfriend, a life of fine restaurants and Cartier purchases and a sure and steady answer for just about any possible question Andrea and Margot have to throw at him.
One thing that gives Good on Paper some narrative muscularity is that Andrea is never presented at any time as a trusting fool; there are a good many times in the film, which is based on Schlesinger’s own experience, when she is openly sceptical of the endless torrent of just-the-right-answer-at-the-right-time proffered by Dennis.
The reason she is open to a relationship with someone who’s so outside her normal taste in men is that she’s at a point in her acting career where things aren’t going so well and the interest of someone as funny and sweet as Dennis is an appealing counterpoint to the less-than-stellar vibe of her own life.
Even when things start picking up for her, she sticks with Dennis, despite mounting misgivings, because she really wants to tick all the boxes of success in her life.
In that respect, Andrea, for all her inspired quips, is just like anyone else would be.
She wants to believe the best of Dennis, wants her life to be as perfect as that of rival actress and perpetual frenemy Serrena (Rebecca Rittenhouse) and so, while the red flags keep popping up with annoying regularity, prompting some pithy observations and manic urging to act by Margot, Andrea keeps her head down, her heart alive and her doubts pushed down in pursuit of a life she has always wanted and of which Dennis is supposed to be the perfect part.
So far, so very human.
Andrea, for all her quips and her buoyant repartee with Margot, and interwoven spots of standup comedy courtesy of Schlesinger who has some biting and winningly articulate things to say about self-respect, female empowerment and taking a firm stand in the face of a male charm offensive, is a very real, grounded person.
Even in the most hilarious of scenes, you can see her humanity worn very much on her sleeve, her aching need to trust Dennis and believe the fairytale version of her life can be real coming to the fore even as the manic pace of jokes keeps up.
If you think it’s all just a bit hard to believe and that neither Andrea or Dennis are believable characters, this reviewer has personal experience via a very close friend that not only can people be this duplicitous but that wise, clever and insightful people can be fooled when their dreams of what could be cloud what actually is.
While Good on Paper is by no means a perfect romantic comedy, it is pretty damn good, balancing humour and serious intent to a winningly pleasing degree, enhanced by Schlesinger’s mostly snappy writing and her brilliant chemistry with Cho who is in superlative form as usual.
The only time the film really loses focus and almost goes completely off the rails, is in its final act when all the goodwill of Andrea’s often vulnerable, sometimes humorous journey is undone by a weirdly atonal attempt at some kind of monologue-filled resolution that comes across more strange than fulfilling.
Good on Paper is saved fortunately by a final scene which wraps things up quite perfectly and judicious placement of songs which accent the story quite nicely, and a general likeability which permeates what is often some unsettling storytelling.
It’s hard to get a film like this right but Schlesinger mostly manages it nicely, delivering a film which is both rom-com and not, and which primarily acts as a rallying cry to women everywhere to never sacrifice who they are and what they are capable of, especially when it comes to men whispering sweet nothings and the promise of happily ever after.