"Good on Paper" subverts rom-com formula with sharp Shlesinger

Good on Paper (2021)


In archaic and more idealistic times, “Good on Paper” would have been a sweetly schematic romantic comedy. You know the kind, where a meet-cute leads to “will-they-or-won’t-they?” tension and temporary obstacles, all ending in a race to the airport for a public declaration of love. Fortunately for us, stand-up comedian Iliza Shlesinger’s stranger-than-fiction dating anecdote didn’t quite go that way, and fortunately for her, writing the feature script for this subversive anti-romantic comedy must have been cathartic. It’s refreshingly more personal and formula-breaking than any high-concept romantic comedy tends to be, and with “Good on Paper,” Shlesinger’s unapologetic honesty and self-deprecation come through in her first leading role. This is her “Trainwreck,” albeit with a so-crazy-it-must-be-true hook involving a whip-smart, career-focused comic eventually falling for a serial liar who doesn’t even look the slick part. 


Iliza Shlesinger plays a version of her 34-year-old self in Andrea Singer, a feminist stand-up comic and actress who has always put her career before a relationship. For the ten years she’s lived in Los Angeles, she hasn’t quite had a breakthrough in acting, attending audition after audition but never receiving the parts she thinks she deserves. Andrea also expends a lot of energy on her petty jealousies toward Serrena Halstead (Rebecca Rittenhouse), an artificially bubbly actress who arrived around the same time as Andrea but already has her face on a billboard. On a flight back home from New York, she finds herself sitting next to Dennis Kelly (played by a dulled-up Ryan Hansen), a charmingly dorky and successful Yale-educated hedge fund manager who can’t get enough of golf and “dresses like a manager at Brooks Brothers.” They get to talking and become fast friends before they spend so much time together that Dennis proposes the idea of becoming a couple. Andrea has no interest in Dennis that way, until they go out drinking and dancing to cheer him up from some heartbreaking news about his cancer-afflicted mother. Romantic feelings come flooding in, but is Dennis too good to be true? Initially ignoring the suspicions of her bar-owning best friend Margot (Margaret Cho), Andrea soon sees the red flags and notices holes in Dennis’ stories, setting off the alarm that he isn’t the person she thought he was.


Based on that premise—which is “a mostly true story” that’s “based on a lie”—“Good on Paper” could have struggled with tone, potentially getting too creepy and mean-spirited. Director Kimmy Gatewood, working from Shlesinger’s semi-autobiographical script and making her feature film debut, mostly keeps it light even when taking the comedy to a broader place in the last third. One extra step and the revenge plan Andrea and Margot have in store for Dennis could have thrown the rest of the movie into wild n' nasty black-comedy territory. Luckily, the film knows Shlesinger’s strengths (after all, she did write the thing), makes observations about gender double standards, and even threads her stand-up during comedy tours throughout the narrative (even if, admittedly, it’s not always her funniest material). In her first lead performance, Shlesinger (who has popped in bit parts, most recently Netflix’s “Pieces of a Woman”) has a naturally spiky presence, approaching Andrea with the same relatability and world-weariness she brings to her Netflix stand-up specials. She certainly embraces the decency and the worst in Andrea, who’s outwardly self-assured but still insecure, because Shlesinger is playing from personal experience. 


“Good on Paper” has a sharp tongue and remains involving. One still has questions about Dennis even after the viewer learns along with Andrea, but maybe it doesn’t even matter. Having perfected the smarmy bro part, Ryan Hansen does what is required of him in playing insidious liar Dennis, even if that means being forced to look like a schlubby milquetoast. A scene where Dennis takes off his shirt to join a hot tub with Andrea and more physically attractive men amusingly frames and edits around the actor in such a way as to not reveal that Dennis’ flabby, hairy torso actually belongs to a stand-in, and that’s the film’s real lie. Margaret Cho is a hilariously acerbic scene partner for Shlesinger as loyal friend and drinking buddy Margot, and though underutilized, Rebecca Rittenhouse brings a likability and vulnerability to the seemingly vapid Serrena. Andrea, and Iliza Shlesinger by extension, is the real truth-teller here (even if it hurts), and she is what makes "Good on Paper" smart and funny more often than not.


Grade: B -


Netflix is releasing “Good on Paper” (92 min.) to stream on June 23, 2021.

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