Good On Paper Review: Shlesinger’s Comedy Fails to Find its Footing on Screen

Film: Good on Paper
Studio: Universal Pictures
Director: Kimmy Gatewood
Starring: Iliza Shlesinger, Margaret Cho, Ryan Hansen
Run Time: 1h 32min

You know those book suggestions where someone tells you, “It’s really good! You just have to get through the first four chapters?” That’s the best description of Good On Paper I can give. Except maybe the “it’s really good” part. Every time I felt the movie was about to finally take flight, technical difficulties in the form of unrealistic dialogue and strange editing grounded me. Which, spoiler alert, if the plane during the meet-cute had similar technical difficulties prior to take off, this would have been a much shorter, more realistic film.

The film stars Iliza Shlesinger as Andrea, a witty and burnt-out comedian trying to break into the acting world. She reluctantly strikes up a conversation, and eventually an equally reluctant friendship, with her airplane seatmate, the overly confident, dorky looking Dennis (Ryan Hansen). The more she gets to know Dennis, the more she realizes she doesn’t know a single thing about him.

Good On Paper is a romantic comedy that attempts to fill too many shoes. It brings comedy, suspense, women empowerment, social commentary on dating men and a weird moment with ripped skin and a door handle. Most romantic comedies understand their roles as heartwarming and easily digestible. Kind of like the Frappuccino of cinema. Good On Paper, however, was like the ‘Unicorn Frappuccino’ Starbucks put out a few years ago. Great in theory (or, good on paper, one could say) but ultimately disappointing.

The film, based on “a mostly true story…based on a lie,” is the screenwriting debut of the film’s star Iliza Shlesinger and directing debut of Kimmy Gatewood. The pair had great intentions, but the results never came. The script is written like a good book. It guides you from meet-cute to conflict, from love to doubt, from enemies to frenemies, but none of these plot driving moments translate organically on screen. The plot is forced along with snippets of standup from Andrea that either re-explains what just happened or foreshadows what’s to come. As an R rated comedy for adults, the repetitious clips did more to disrupt the moment than keep me engaged.

This film attempts to encompass all of Shlesinger’s past work into one raunchy, relatable, Hollywood-adjacent package, but I’m not sure you should be buying. The story is the real-life dating nightmare previously shared by Shlesinger on Comedy Central’s This Is Not Happening. Much like the Comedy Central set, many of the film’s main themes like dating, friendship and women are plucked right from Shlesinger’s standup. The issue is it lacked a fundamental aspect of Shlesinger’s comedy: storytelling. Stand-up comedy captivates an audience through storytelling. This movie tells a story, but it never manages to captivate.

The characters are a large part of what doesn’t land. Dennis Kelly is a cringeworthy, egotistical, pathological liar who is continuously labeled as “charming” in a thinly veiled attempt to convince the audience to feel the same way. There is no charm – just blatant gaslighting and manipulation. Andrea’s character is mostly believable. With one massive flaw: she doesn’t notice any of Dennis’ red flags. I get that love is blind, but Dennis was the leader of the red flag brigade. To help the smart and independent yet oblivious Andrea, her best friend Margo (played by Margaret Cho) exists to cast doubt. While her character is a great comedic relief, her objections about Dennis are supposed to plant the seed of a stranger danger flower that fully bloomed the second we meet Dennis.

It isn’t only the characters that fall short. Certain scenes feel right out of a Hollywood blockbuster while others seem made for an indie film festival. The lack of cinematic cohesion matches well with the script’s less-than-realistic translation on screen. There are enough sound and editing blunders to make me question the film’s quality. At one point, half of the screen is blurred out because of copyrighted material in the background. I’m no filmmaker, but I think a reshoot or control+alt+delete might have been more appropriate. Not only did the mistakes take me out of the movie, it also made me wonder how many editing mistakes I missed. Even if there aren’t any, it’s probably less than favorable for an audience to wonder how many times editing screwed up.

Good On Paper has “first project” written all over it. Though Andrea’s character stays unapologetically true to values, the rest of the film crumbles around her. I could see everything the film was trying to accomplish but I found myself cringing at the faults more than cheering on the characters. If you’re going to watch it, just remember: Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino.

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars