Real life 20-something comedienne Charlyne Yi (I have no idea who she is though) is bummed because she hasn't experienced real romantic love, and feels she is incapable of doing do. She attempts to understand this by making a documentary, examining her feelings and hearing others' stories about their own experience with true love.
Along the way she interviews much-in-love couples of varying ages and types, as well as friends and strangers. Interspersed throughout the movie are a few puppet scenes that illustrate a story someone is telling about their love match (the puppetry is pretty amateur though). She also meets Michael Cera (the actor playing himself) at a party and he seems to be attracted to her (his vocation is not mentioned much in the film and doesn't seem intrusive in their life). While it is "unplanned," the film continues to document their "relationship," and although Charlyne is hesitant to start anything romantic and even more hesitant to have it onscreen, the relationship does blossom. At times her friend/documentarian coerces her and Michael to do things for the camera that they don't want to do or are not true to life. This kind of intrusion eventually leads Michael to end the relationship. Charlyne tries to re-examine things and repair the relationship, even if ends up a friendship and not a romance.
While a cute little concept, a lot of this feels unmotivated and too unscripted. In the commentary track Yi admits she is not a good speaker nor a good actor (which is true), and in some bits of the film where they show her performing her standup routine onstage, her comedy is not that funny to me either. She dresses like and hangs out with the guys more than is a girly girl, so her reticence to love or standoffishness is not a stereotypical girly emotion either, yet this facet is unexplored. There seems little real thought as to the character of Charlyne and despite this film I still don't get a sense of her attitude to love or her feelings about anything for that matter. For instance, why didn't she interview her family (whether real or portrayed by actors)--they could be a foundation of where she got her ideas from; perhaps her parents are divorced, or they are in an arranged marriage, or maybe they are not openly loving, this sort of detail could have helped explain why Charlyne is hesitant.
I think this film would have benefitted from a real actress in the lead, and a better realization of the main character and script, with Charlyne the filmmaker staying behind the camera. I don't know why she thought she had the talent to do a project like this, especially since she herself admits how amateur she is. The special features includes clips of her interviewing real comedian friends on the topic (I think they were meant to be internet ads for the film), several who are funnier than the film is.
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