I’d been married for forty-three years before my hubby passed away. I’m definitely not ready for the dating game, but how do young people today know when they’ve met the right person? Sometimes what seems good on paper…is anything but, and this is the plot for Good on Paper.
Plot
Good on Paper is a 2021 American comedy directed by Kimmy Gatewood and stars Iliza Shlesinger, Ryan Hansen, Margaret Cho, and Rebecca Rittenhouse. Andrea Singer (Shlesinger) is a 34-year-old stand-up comedian, but she is hoping for a role in movies. She has the talent and the looks to attract any man that she wants, but she is too busy focusing on her career to settle down…that is until Andrea bumps into Dennis Kelley (Ryan Hansen) at the airport.
Andrea is at first not interested in Dennis, who manages to get a seat next to her on the plane. Dennis is sort of a Clark Kent dork kind of guy, but he tells Andrea that he is a Yale graduate and that he makes oodles of money in hedge funds and lives in a big house in Beverly Hills. A platonic relationship is formed between Andrea and Dennis, and she introduces Dennis to her friend Margo (Margaret Cho) who owns a bar. Margo is not at all impressed with this mild mannered dork and grows increasingly suspicious of Dennis especially after Andrea and Dennis become intimate.
Andrea continues to try out for bit parts in film while dealing with a rival actress, Serrena Halstead (Rebecca Rittenhouse). Serrena keeps getting all the parts that Andrea wants, plus Serrena’s face is plastered on a huge billboard outside of Margo’s bar. The interaction between these two characters is worth watching the movie for alone.
It isn’t long before Dennis worms his way into Andrea’s heart, but that is where the action begins because things start to unravel. Andrea knows nothing about Dennis’s private life. When Andrea and Dennis double date with her cousin Brett (Matt McGorry), an actual Yale graduate…Dennis’s Yale story begins to fall apart. Andrea really gets suspicious when the date to meet Dennis’s mother falls through because Dennis tells Andrea that his mother is dying from cancer.
Conclusion
Andrea finds out that Dennis is sharing an apartment with two women: Maggie (Kimia Behpoornia) and Leslie (Beth Dover) who both think that Dennis is a sociopath. In what can be described as a hilarious Pink Panther sort of sleuthing expedition, Serrena and Margot help Andrea learn the truth about Dennis. Good On Paper was funny, and I know that you will love it…maybe even more if you know that this film was based on true events.
Good On Paper, which Shlesinger wrote, is based on a real-life incident involving a man that Shlesinger dated. She turned the event into a stand-up routine called “Lying Brian” about a man that she met on an airplane who clamed to be a Yale graduate and worked at a hedge fund. In real life, it was Schlesinger’s mother who investigated Lying Brian. Here is a video of Shlesinger’s Lying Brian sketch.
Apparently, things haven’t changed much in the dating world since I was out there. So here is some good advice from granny. “If something looks too good to be true…RUN! You can watch Good on Paper on Netflix.
