Ruby Sparks

Synopsis: Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) had a best-selling novel at age 19. Ten years on, he is struggling desperately with writer’s block. Day after day he sits at his old typewriter until some excuse allows him to slip away from his desk. Calvin finally manages to start writing about his dream girlfriend Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) and the words start to flow, until he finds Ruby has morphed from mental image into flesh and blood presence. Is Calvin really going nuts? His brother Harry (Chris Messina) thinks so ... at least at the outset.

Husband and wife team Jonathon Dayton and Valerie Faris directed Little Miss Sunshine (2006), a tale rich with family dysfunction and which also featured Paul Dano as the teenager who had taken a vow of silence. In Ruby Sparks dysfunction again plays a significant part; Calvin struggles not only to get over his “second novel syndrome” but also to maintain basic relationships with other human beings.

Perhaps the most difficult task for a film about a writer is to show the inner turmoil that the unproductive author is experiencing. Dayton and Faris use various devices to show Calvin’s stasis: the perfect alignment of items next to the typewriter, the Post-It notes stuck in careful order on the wall next to Calvin’s desk. The state of suspension is highlighted by these yellow bits of paper, the only colour in Calvin’s starkly white house.

Performances are good all round, with no surprise that the chemistry between the leads is convincing, as Dano and Kazan who also wrote the script are real-life partners. I would have liked to have seen more of the supporting cast; they sparkled, especially Annette Bening as Calvin’s mother who has given away meat and a conservative lifestyle for mung beans and a carefree Spanish lover (Antonio Banderas). A star support role goes to Steve Coogan as Langdon Tharp, the oily guy on the make who eyes off Ruby.

The film is in essence about the loneliness of writing. In the way of many “magical” stories it does require a suspension of disbelief and it recalls the old school whimsy of a film such as Hnery Koster's Harvey (1950), which is mentioned by Ruby at one point and in which James Stewart had a 6 foot rabbit for a friend, .

Ruby Sparks is a modest, enjoyable story that harkens back to an simpler, yesteryear style of storytelling, less dependent on visual distraction and reliant more on careful plotting and witty dialogue. Perhaps that is not surprising, given that Kazan is the granddaughter of Elia Kazan,

Want more about this film?

Want something different?