Are you comfortable with the person God created you to be?  Good on Paper (2021) asks this question, though, unsurprisingly, without any reference to Faith.  I ask because, hopefully, the reason you return to The Legionnaire for a Catholic perspective on the broad cultural topics raised by movies is because you are curious as to the answer to this question, and understand culture’s solution is not satisfactory.  I am also going to explore that initial query when I get to the section of my reviews usually dedicated to such analyses.  In the meantime, it always strikes me with so many films how they wonder about so many problems in life to which God is the answer without coming to Him.  This being a comedy, it uses humor to make light of a situation fraught with emotions that, it seems to this Catholic, we are less able to cope with than at any other point in history.  Thus, we turn to quick fixes likes alcohol, drugs, or sex to fill that which, again, only God can truly provide.  Once more, I am getting ahead of myself.  Let us take a deeper dive on what is basically an hour and a half long stand-up comedy routine.

The issue with which comedienne Andrea Singer (Iliza Shlesinger) is having trouble with is a guy named Dennis Kelley (Ryan Hansen), who looks Good on Paper.  The first thing we see is her addressing a standard stand-up subject, relationships, and discussing it from the woman’s point of view.  It then shifts to her life off the stage as she continues to decry most men while leaving a failed audition.  It is one where she is beat out by her arch-rival, the always positive, up-and-coming actress Serrena Halstead (Rebecca Rittenhouse).  Already in a bad mood, Andrea meets the unassuming Dennis in the airport when she drops her boarding pass while hurrying through the terminal.  He picks it up and returns it to her, and then ends up being in the neighboring seat on the flight.  Though she is not initially attracted to him, she is pleased to have somebody nice to talk to . . . despite his constant bragging about being a hedge fund manager and graduating from Yale.  He also says he has a girlfriend, but over the course of the next few weeks spends as much time as possible with Andrea.  Meanwhile, her acting career takes a major step forward when she is offered a role in an upcoming television show set to film in Vancouver, Canada, for a few months.  On the heels of getting the part, he says that he would like her to be his girlfriend, citing his credentials and the fact that he would treat her well.  She is touched, but she is not romantically interested in him.  What changes her mind is getting a call from him soon after this saying that his mother has been diagnosed with cancer.  She leaves a date she had been on to comfort him, and they end up getting drunk and sleeping with one another.  At this point, she reconsiders and they become a couple.  Despite the obvious red flags, it is her bartender best friend Margot (Margaret Cho) who presses Andrea that something is off about Dennis.  The first problem that arises is his living situation.  When Andrea goes to the address he gives her, she finds two other women claiming to be his roommates.  This is a living arrangement he had never divulged.  On the eve of going to meet up with her cousin, Brett (Matt McGorry), she confronts Dennis about this revelation.  He claims he had been embarrassed about his house because he does not spend that much time there, that he helps them with rent while he cares for his sick mother.  This covers him for the moment, but Margot keeps digging.  Further cracks occur when they play golf with Brett and his girlfriend, both actual Ivy League alumni, and it is evident that Dennis knows little about Eli lore.  Shortly after returning from the jaunt on the links, Andrea is set to meet his supposedly sick mother.  Yet, following an interrupted script reading for the television show by Serrena, Margot continuing to uncover more lies, and Brett saying they will have to postpone the meeting with his mother, Andrea forces Margot and Serrena to track down more untruths about her boyfriend.  They end up going to the Beverly Hills or Hollywood (they differ on the actual neighborhood) residence where Dennis says he stays with his dying mother, and finds that the house belongs to someone else.  Next, Andrea and Margot go to the home that Dennis claims to be assisting with the rent.  The two women give Andrea a different version of this story, saying that it is them that give charity to the struggling bank employee Dennis.  Their description of his lack of fortune jives with his tiny, sparse room, with a single bed and a side-table functioning as a desk for his laptop computer.  Andrea is understandably upset, and she lets Margot convince her that they need to force Dennis to admit his lies.  Margot gets him falling down drunk at her bar, and he stumbles outside.  This means Andrea and Margot have to pick up a passed-out Dennis, and they end up ripping off a chunk of his skin on his side when they struggle to get him in the door.  When he finally comes to, he confesses to having made up pretty much everything about his life.  With this he leaves.  Unfortunately, it is not the last time Andrea and Dennis see one another.  He has her arrested for attempted kidnapping and torture.  When she takes the stand, on top of giving a better picture of the evening in question, she underscores his pathetic nature.  In the end, all she gets is a restraining order, which is perfectly fine by her.  The last shot is of a billboard she had rented with his face on it, warning the public not to date this person.

The brief description that I saw on Netflix of Good on Paper had me already thinking along the lines of what the movie might say about knowing another person in a relationship.  As I alluded to in the introduction, this is good material for stand-up comedy, and a Catholic film reviewer.  What I find interesting about this in a general sense is how different and similar at the same time are Christian and non-Christian dating.  The differences are obvious.  True, God centered relationships do not have pre-marital sex as a factor in making or breaking a couple, and this is something on which the film is fixated.  It is sad because it also suggests that you should not trust others, and then provides a shocking example what can happen if you allow yourself to do so.  The Bible would tell you that putting your confidence in someone else is a good thing, no matter the outcome.  There is no sin in doing so, though it gets a little fuzzy if you blatantly ignore warning signs.  Andrea does this, but then again, it is a comedy.  What a Christian is called to do is discern.  We should not immediately jump into a relationship, much less the bed, with another person without a nice, slow period of getting to know someone.  Therein lies the divide.  Modern culture is less concerned with the consequences of actions, whereas someone who whole heartedly believes in God knows they exist.  The film speaks to some of the issues, which I also raised in the introduction.  There is a point at which Andrea says that she has it all and yet is wishing she had more.  A Christian is supposed to understand that there is no more than God, and that seeking Him should come first, even before a significant other.  If that potential boyfriend or girlfriend is doing the same thing, then it makes the discernment that much easier.  Doing so also gets one closer to their actual self, the person God wants us to be, and not the kind that feels they need to lie in order to attract someone.

There is a bit of inappropriateness in Good on Paper, mostly because it seems that comedies think you need to be offensive to be funny.  Luckily, it does not overshadow what is kind of an interesting character study.  It goes about it in a way I would rather see people avoid, but it lands it a pretty good place by the end.  You could do worse.