Love Conquers Paul (2009)

Love Conquers Paul is an independent movie that has weaknesses in its audio, acting, script, and directing, however, I always stick through to the end and in this case I was glad I did. The movie was filmed in Glen Falls, New York and that setting gives it some grounding, which is important given the movie's premise and development (and weaknesses). Paul (Brendan Bradley) first appears as a cute but fairly creepy stalker who tapes women having coffee, driving to work, and so on. He selects a suitable "target" and concocts a pretense to meet them "by chance," initiate a conversation, then go on a first and then subsequent dates. He explains his latest failure to his best friend Ray (Russell Garafolo): He hadn't actually read her favorite book so he was clueless when the woman asked the most obvious question about it. We slowly begin to get the idea that Paul isn't creepy because he's controlling but he seeks a measure of control because he is insecure: He really has no clue how to converse naturally with a woman (much less what to do with one if he catches her). He seems emotionally frozen in preadolescence, trying to learn by rote and logic what comes naturally to young men with a greater vested self-interest. We also gradually learn the origins of Paul's stunted emotional growth -- and he becomes a mildly tragic figure. Paul's life since age 10 has largely been filtered through the videocamera -- his interactions with his mother as a child and with the world as an adult -- yet it is not the detachment of the camera but his relationship with his mother (seen as he reviews his tape library and weeps) that has frozen his heart. We also suspect and then eventually become aware that Paul is not as surreptitious a videotaper as he would think. His boyish and buoyant hopes for love are firmly crushed -- but Paul picks himself up and actually seems to become slightly better-adjusted with hope for a normal life. Watch it to see for yourself. Love Conquers Paul feels like Gigante or, much more faintly, Film Geek or Napoleon Dynamite. 3 stars.