Review of Ruby Sparks (2012) by Chris W — 26 Jan 2013

After far too long, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris finally deliver a follow-up to Little Miss Sunshine.

Paul Dano plays Calvin, a young novelist who peaked far too early, and is now struggling, but with his career and with his love life. Upon receiving a writing assignment from his therapist, he creates a woman named Ruby who inspires him. Things get nuts when his dream woman literally comes alive, completely unaware of her real origin.

This is a really quirky and imaginative set up for a movie, and I have to give Zoe Kazan a lot of credit as both the screenwriter as the actress playing Ruby. Her performance is strong, but her writing...not so much. It's good, for the most part, but ultimately rather uneven and kinda messy.

That's a good way to sum up the film overall. It's got a lot of potential, and it gets a lot of stuff right, but it's all over the map, and feels conflicted about what it's trying to say or do.

Like I said, it is a good premise, and they do play with it, but not as much as I figured they would. Dano and Kazan are good, but a lot of the notable supporting cast aren't given nearly enough to do, namely Coogan, Benning, Gould, and Banderas.

I did like this movie, but, like the film itself, I'm all over the place with how I feel about it. I'm more pleased than not, but ultimately feel it could have been somewhat better conceived, and definitely better executed.