Movie Review: Ruby Sparks

Ruby Sparks is the story of Calvin Weir-Fields, an author still struggling after ten years to write a follow up to his phenomenally successful debut novel. One night, he has a dream about a beautiful, quirky red-head named Ruby Sparks. When he wakes up, he writes down the dream and his writer’s block is unblocked. He can’t stop writing his story about this girl, until one day he finds her in his kitchen. Somehow he has literally written her into his life.

Paul Dano, who plays Calvin, was great. He reminded me a lot of Andrew McCarthy and his character in St. Elmo’s Fire – a cute, angsty, sensitive writer. Zoe Kazan shows great range as Ruby going through changes as Calvin “tweaks” her. Annette Bening is wonderfully serene as Calvin’s mother and Antonio Banderas is super sexy as her husband Mort, even with gray hair and a beard.

Kazan also wrote the screenplay, which raises interesting questions about whether or not it would actually be a good thing to be able to design and control your mate. Would you want total control or is that creepy? Is just a little bit of control okay? It’s a romantic comedy with intelligence and surprises that should appeal to BOTH women and men.

Ruby Sparks is currently in limited release. You can check to see when it will be released in your market here.

(Thank you to my friend Angie for inviting me to be her date for the screening. She was provided complimentary tickets by a representative of Fox Searchlight.)