It’s been six years since husband and wife directing duo Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris took the film world by storm with their charming Oscar-winning road movie Little Miss Sunshine. Now they’re back with Ruby Sparks, a meta-dramedy that sits somewhere between Weird Science and Stranger Than Fiction.
Paul Dano plays Calvin, an author who previously had major success with his debut novel but has since found it difficult to live up to his early promise. On the advice of his therapist he decides to write about a fictional girl he dreamt about named Ruby Sparks, which inspires him to the point of falling in love with her. But one day his world truly changes when he wakes up to find Ruby living in his house.
How much Ruby Sparks works for you on the level(s) it’s aiming for will depend entirely on how much you buy into the central conceit. It makes no sense whatsoever on a narrative level (and gets more lost the more people interact with Ruby) but taps into the idea of the way in which characters are written in all kinds of fiction. Calvin not only manifests Ruby but can control her every attribute just by writing new words on the page. In that respect the film goes into some very dark places at times, more so than you might expect from a film sold as a quirky indie comedy. The fact that he literally made up a woman, and can change her at will, nods towards the creepy at times but that aspect is never really delved into thoroughly – perhaps it would have been truly fascinating if it had – as the film regularly reverts back to the cutesy end of the spectrum.
What’s perhaps most interesting about the film is the fact that the Zoe Kazan, who plays the eponymous character, also wrote the screenplay. It’s possible to read the film as a gender interaction study but what does Kazan writing it say for that angle? – if it were written by a man the film would certainly skew differently. In that case perhaps it’s truly about men and women trying to change each other in a relationship. Or about finding the perfect love (the optimist’s choice). Or that there is no such thing (choice of the cynics). Then again maybe it’s just a “Wouldn’t it be cool if…?” idea played out with no real eye on logic. It’s either nicely open to interpretation or frustratingly uncommitted, depending on your perspective.
Ruby Sparks shines mostly in the performances, from Dano’s frustrated, egotistical author whom many viewers will find intolerable to Kazan as Ruby herself, enigmatic and fascinating in her portrayal of a character created out of ink on a page, the quintessential embodiment of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl found in oh so many quirky indie films. A plethora of familiar faces populate the supporting cast – including Antonio Banderas, Annette Bening, Chris Messina, Elliott Gould and Steve Coogan – who elevate the subplots. And Dayton and Faris’ unobtrusive direction allows for the peculiar central relationship study to thrive, with interactions brought to life by snappy dialogue even if the idea as a whole might not be completely air-tight.
In the end, though, there’s something crucial missing from Ruby Sparks. The great performances are there, the witty dialogue, the gem of a set-up… but there’s a vital ingredient lacking that I can’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it’s the sense of sincerity that was found in Little Miss Sunshine that’s lacking here or perhaps Dano’s character is just had to care about. Ultimately it’s sufficiently charming, funny and insightful but in the end I wanted it to do more than just hit the minimum word count.
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