Paper Man: Critic Reviews

Ignore the story of Paper Heart ... Concentrate instead on the delightful performances.

An intelligent, meticulously constructed, well-acted movie that has been written to death.

An artist-in-crisis piece run through a drab but quirk-conscious indie processor.

Married screenwriters Kieran and Michelle Mulroney, who are making their directorial debut, try to wed the peculiar to the poignant and they are irreconcilable.

A big Twinkie stuffed with indie-film cliches and glazed with chiming emo guitars.

I can think of no better way to describe Paper Man than the blogger who wrote that the point of this awful movie is "No matter how immature you are, you can always remain married to Lisa Kudrow."

Paper Man is far from perfect, but it holds your interest as a character study because of strong performances by Daniels and Stone.

The manipulations characters act out with each other are realistic, even if the overlong and not-nearly-twee-enough comedy built around them isn't, making for a movie whose script may have had more merit than its execution. Or not.

The quirk-laden indie Paper Man brings together a novelist who won't grow up with a sullen teenage girl for mutual wallowing, eccentric high jinks and life lessons but, unfortunately, little reason to care.

Aided by subtly wounded performances by Daniels and Stone, and a surprisingly affecting comic turn from Reynolds, Paper Man makes up for many of its shortcomings with an abundance of heart.

What we have in this film is a whole lot of nothing, and the little that's there is irritating.

We don't even get a real sense of what kind of writer Richard is, or even if he's any good. It does make a difference, after all, if the novel he can't write is worth writing. A bigger question: Was "Paper Man" worth making?

A flimsy character study...as ephemeral and forgettable as a sheet of paper carried off by a gust of wind.

We're subjected to so much arbitrary quirkiness that the characters' big breakthroughs and breakdowns ring false, accidentally making for some of the film's biggest laughs.

It's tough to watch such a glum progression through the familiar, with bits of quirk dissected and bandied about.

Jeff Daniels' issues are self-indulgent. But to him, his writer's block and insubstantial life are epic, and the film sides with him more often than not.

Are we supposed to look upon a guy who comes on to young girls and plies kids with alcohol as some sort of blithe free spirit?

Too introverted and gimmicky for its own good.

Emma Stone gives a tour de force over fine performances by Daniels, Kudrow, and Reynolds.

Love, Long Island style!

...with Paper Man they've dived with gleeful abandon into that big quirky pond, to sink or swim. Well, at least they don't drown

First-time husband-and-wife writers-directors Kieran and Michele Mulroney mine rich thematic territory with sharp literary language and keen, if modest, visuals.

Husband-and-wife writer-directors Keiran and Michele Mulroney try to smooth over implausibilities with an intrusive emo soundtrack and "dramedic" feints, but the effort is useless.

The cure for the common dramedy: superhero sidekick Ryan Reynolds.