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| Zoe Kazan wrote and stars in "Ruby Sparks" |
“One
may read this and think it's magic, but falling in love is an act of magic. So is writing.”
-Calvin
in “Ruby Sparks”
Sitting here right now searching for the right words to
begin this review, I feel sort of like Calvin (Paul Dano), the main character
in “Ruby Sparks,” a young novelist who wrote his breakthrough book as a
19-year-old wunderkind, but years later, is struggling to live up to that success.
Was the first book an accident? Is he a one-hit wonder? Nagging questions
linger each day as he sits at his desk and peers down at the keys on his
old-school typewriter, scanning his mind for ideas and inspiration. The hardest
part is getting started.
Smart, funny and thoroughly original, "Ruby
Sparks" is both a heartfelt, genuinely magical romance and a gorgeous, mysterious
and slightly maniacal love letter to the art of writing. It was directed by
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the team behind "Little Miss
Sunshine," and written by Zoe Kazan, who also stars as the film's eponymous
heroine.
Eventually, a blurred figure from Calvin’s imagination
takes shape in the form of Ruby, a girl who rises from his dreams to be his
next muse. Calvin begins to write about her and the words pour out as if from a
geyser, returning light into his gloomy world. That is until he realizes that
his creation has come to life as the affectionate, pretty, strawberry-blonde
Kazan.
At first, Calvin believes Ruby is some strange
hallucination until other people start to see her. Once this happens, he locks
away his manuscript and lets his heart take over. Having been spurned in a
prior relationship (his last girlfriend broke up with him after five years), he’s
not about to let go of this one, even if she came from nothing more than ink on
a page.
Calvin and Ruby are happy and everything goes according
to script, literally, until the real world takes over. Ruby, spirited and
outgoing, feels trapped in Calvin’s anti-social, isolated lifestyle and begins
to withdraw. That compels Calvin to reluctantly pull out the manuscript and
type little changes to her, paradoxically suiting his needs like some
well-meaning, half-deranged puppeteer.
This type of tinkering only leads to disaster and the
last act, when Calvin finally reveals the ingredients behind his spell, are
tinged with dark comedy and a touch of madness. It's not exactly Jack Nicholson
in "The Shining," but the abrupt shift in tone is jarring and dances
to the edge of excess.
But this comes long after “Ruby Sparks” establishes a fresh,
thoughtful take on modern relationships, exploring how hard it is for couples
to be perfect together and how easily things go wrong when they are. Using its
cache of clever ideas, the movie is able to examine themes like romance and
individuality without being overly snarky or cynical.
The magnificent, multi-talented Zoe Kazan is both a
lively, luminous screen presence and a brilliant screenwriter. Certain scenes
capture the struggles and joys of the creative process—such as Paul staring
into the hollow abyss of a blank sheet of paper when he can't think of
anything, and later dashing upstairs to his typewriter like a bolt of lightning
when a good idea hits—with the savvy precision of a writer with an innate sense
of the craft.
“Ruby Sparks” is a great love story and one of the
smartest movies about writing in a long time.
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