Review of Ruby Sparks (2012) by Christopher N — 27 Nov 2012

In Nathan Rabin's on-going article series for The A.V. Club, My Years of Flops, he details one of cinema's most vapid archetypes: The Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Rabin describes her as a "shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors." She is Zooey Deschanel in (500) Days of Summer, and Helen Hunt in Almost Famous. She enters a flagging male protagonist's life and enthuses it with quirky, problems-are-endearing charm; while never having any use outside of her adventures with men.

Ruby Sparks attempts to comment on and subvert this concept. Unfortunately, much like a Lonely Island parody track, the film bathes too much in the shit it can't smell.

Paul Dano plays Calvin Weir-Fields, a frustrated writer trying to pen his second novel after great success with his first. Naturally, his life has sunk into a state of writers block, frigidness, and constant therapy. Enter Ruby-- a painter, a redhead, a work of fiction. Yes, Ruby is a fictional character summoned by Calvin's writing, or typewriter, or love, or magic powers, or something something.

Ruby's immaculate appearance is the film presenting a literal incarnation of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She is a summoned blank cipher who will serve as the hero's redemption, and most importantly a parody of supposedly fully-formed MPDGs in other films. It's a neat idea that falls flat in execution.

As the film continues, Calvin finds himself losing control of his perfect woman, and succeeds to break his rule of not altering Ruby by writing more of her. In this, he changes her personality to extremes, making her embody a range of male-driven female stereotypes; from clingy, to perky, to flirtatious. It's an absurd notion that a once-prodigy writer would scribe such awful cliches, with no nuance whatsoever, and one that serves to quickly degrade Calvin's character; making him ferociously unlikeable.

The unlikeable characters are thick in Ruby Sparks. Most being ironic, one-dimensional fodder to the already stereotypical husks of Ruby and Calvin. There's the dead father, overly-familiar stepfather, hippie mother, jock brother, and adorable puppy--all indicative of the film's rampant obliviousness.

By the time all comes to a head, and the gross nature of events is addressed in a fantastically-performed and treacle-dark showdown between Frankenstein and his Monster, it's far too late to pull the film from its woefully-pretentious mire. A mire the script dives deeper into with its Rohypnol-endorsing travesty of an ending. AVOID.