Daniels is PAPER MAN!

Paper Man – Kieran and Michele Mulroney

A man made of paper sounds like the shittest idea for a superhero doesn’t it? Or maybe the Paper Man fires paper at people giving them really annoying paper cuts. Maybe he uses different types of paper like crate or see-through to give off different affects. Sadly the Paper Man film starring Jeff Daniels, Emma Stone and the ever amazing Ryan Reynolds doesn’t feature a superhero that has paper based powers, but it does feature an imaginary superhero in the mind of the character of Jeff Daniels played by Reynolds. A seemingly lost writer, Daniels, goes to a small village to live in a shack for a few months to write a new book and he soon finds it’s not as easy as he thought, as his imagination runs wild, having an imagery person crash into his life and causing havoc by telling him what’s wrong and right about his life. Whilst living in this small shack, he finds a new attraction to a local girl, played by Stone, who soon begin an unlikely friendship which borders on the strange and could possibly go further, but never does. Daniels is married to Lisa Kudrow and their marriage is also a major factor in the film, showing the slow decline of their distance from each other. But the major performance here is both Daniels and incredibly Kieran Culkin who plays Stone’s friend who seems to be in love with her. The two performances make the film with Daniels commanding the film bringing some subtle humour and a real sadness that will deeply affect you when you watch it, it really shows his range and his true capability as an actor, something which is also seen in one my favourite films The Squid and The Whale. Culkin, only seen as a bit part to the story is amazing, truly is, and shows that the brother of the famous Culkin can act and his relationship with Stone’s character is deeply upsetting and full of raw emotion. Sure he has the same face for most of it, but the way he stands, the posture, the way he walks, it seems as though, the little details matter more.

With this being a shorter review than normal because i have nothing bad to say about it, it may seem that i really love this film, it’s a great film but i wouldn’t say it’s the best I’ve seen this year. It entertained me but in a different way to anything I’ve seen this year. It’s more about the human emotions and the realness of the whole scenario. It’s chilling and depressing, but sometimes that’s what you want.

7/10

Simon Childs