Richard (Jeff Daniels) is a published but unsuccessful writer, married to successful doctor Claire (Lisa Kudrow). The marriage is in low-key trouble because Richard is floundering, both in his writing and in life in general, as is made clear by the fact that he is accompanied by his childhood imaginary friend, super-hero Captain Excellent (Ryan Reynolds). As an unspoken measure of last resort, Richard goes to a holiday cabin to try to find his muse: instead, he finds Abby (Emma Stone), a youngster with issues of her own. A relationship grows between Richard and Abby, but it may well cause more problems that it solves.
Despite its relatively high profile cast, and despite the fact that I am an enthusiastic cinema-goer and film follower, I had never heard of this film under either its original title of Paper Man or the title under which I found it in the Pound Shop, Unlikely Hero. Add the fact that it appears to have been re-marketed as a quasi-super-hero movie, and I was unprepared for what followed.
The story is gentle and leisurely, but quite dark at times. It is not even slightly a comedy despite the DVD case giving that impression. Daniels gives Richard an air of affability, a mechanism he uses to compensate for his inability to deal with life: this makes it a little too easy to overlook how good his performance is.
But this is Emma Stone's film: she is wonderful.
Despite its relatively high profile cast, and despite the fact that I am an enthusiastic cinema-goer and film follower, I had never heard of this film under either its original title of Paper Man or the title under which I found it in the Pound Shop, Unlikely Hero. Add the fact that it appears to have been re-marketed as a quasi-super-hero movie, and I was unprepared for what followed.
The story is gentle and leisurely, but quite dark at times. It is not even slightly a comedy despite the DVD case giving that impression. Daniels gives Richard an air of affability, a mechanism he uses to compensate for his inability to deal with life: this makes it a little too easy to overlook how good his performance is.
But this is Emma Stone's film: she is wonderful.