Netflix comedy specials have a special look to them. It’s probably attributed to the way that they’re filmed. In a Comedy Central video, the cameras seems to be at the back row, with a couple more at different angles for the same two audience member reactions. In a Netflix comedy special, the camera quality is TED Talk-polished, the projection screen is towering, and the spotlights are theatrical. Hasan Minhaj’s 2017 Homecoming King performance was acrobatic (for comedian standards), and had the stage width for the different affectations to occur at different corners. Who knew that Netflix could raise the bar?

Good on Paper was a likely eventuality. Written by Iliza Shlesinger, who has had a few Netflix specials of her own, the movie essentially plays out as an illustration book for one of her stand-up jokes. It isn’t advertised as such, but the plot flow is sometimes interrupted by Shlesinger’s character, Andrea, on stage, interjecting a concluding bit about the scene. It sounds strange, but honestly, it’s not that outlandish as a film concept. If the story’s good, why not make a movie out of it? I could see an allegorical poli-satire of a horse in a hospital in a few years.

The set-up is as follows: after flunking on a scripted project audition, Andrea meets Dennis (Ryan Hansen) on a plane. He is persistently eager, nice, and seems to fit the bill of the modern “good man”: Yale-educated, easily absorptive of her caustic jokes without retaliation, and willing to help her with her audition videos. Andrea isn’t initially attracted to him, but after a night of shrooms and hooking up, they embark on a relationship.

In the renewed ways of dating strangers as a geriatric millennial, it’s natural to feel apprehensive about a new romantic partner (just watch any comedy special). Ghosting, slow burning, catfishing, kittenfishing: these are subgenres of online dating horror tales. It seems improbable, even outdated, to be able to fake an appearance or lifestyle from an old-fashioned meet-cute, since liars will eventually get entangled in their own web. Still, Andrea’s suspicions about Dennis are only fueled through her friend Margot’s egging-on (played by Margaret Cho, who complements nicely without ostracizing herself as a comedian of a different generation). But because things are going downhill in her life, could it be that Andrea gets in her own way?

A lot of Shlesinger’s jokes are about the societal expectations and double standards of being a woman, but I think that, even without meaning to, Good on Paper is an extension of her dogma. The movie could have featured standard rom-com warfare, in which both parties learn the errors of their ways in order to be together, but I had expected that Andrea, in her all-abrasive nature, would be the one who learns to be optimistic. Instead, I caught myself stuck in the narrative that mean women become nicer when they’re in love. The film most excels when Shlesinger hacks insults like she breathes air. Does she deserve to fall in love and be vulnerable? Sure. But would I rather see her shoot the shit with Cho in situations of espionage and kidnapping? Most definitely.

Good on Paper
2021
dir. Kimmy Gatewood
92 mins

Now streaming on Netflix!