Ruby Sparks

 

2 1/2 stars

A best-selling author at 19, Calvin Weir-Fields is a man whose body language apologizes with every shrug and baleful hesitation. Walking his dog in the hills of Los Feliz, Calif., near Hollywood, the novelist seems at odds with just about everything.

Ten years after his initial success, he finds himself embedded in a big fat hunk of writer's block. He obsesses over past injuries and slights and a romantic breakup. Calvin complains to his shrink, Dr. Rosenthal, about how his dog, Scotty, is not lovable and squats to pee rather than lifting a leg like a legitimate male dog.

Dr. Rosenthal assigns Calvin a task: Write a story about the woman he has been dreaming about. It doesn't have to be anything big, he's told. Ruby is born. The character, according to Calvin's imagination, hails from Dayton, Ohio, and is a sometime painter. She's an idealized charmer.

And then she springs to life off the page, in the performance of Zoe Kazan, who wrote the script for the intriguing if muffled Pygmalion fantasy "Ruby Sparks," and who co-stars with her real-life boyfriend, Paul Dano.

Your response to the film, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris of "Little Miss Sunshine," will likely rest on a tonal shift at the midpoint. In the early going, Calvin tries to get his addled brain around the miracle of Ruby, a fictional character made real, and he learns he's not the only one who can see and hear her. The comic possibilities of an id-sprung companion, lover, cook (she's always cooking something) and friend are handled by Kazan with a light and easygoing touch.

If Calvin yearns for an adjustment in his newfound love, he simply types into his ongoing story a desired revision. Too distant? A simple "Ruby missed Calvin" turns Ruby into an extreme bundle of Cling-On. At one amusing juncture Kazan sits as close as possible to Dano, staring into his eyes and then bursting into tears, saying: "I miss you right now!"

For a while "Ruby Sparks" engages and provokes with its depiction of a controlling male about to learn the limits of control, and the unhealthy relational impulse behind it. The film stumbles, however, in its transition (rather sudden) into more dramatic and psychologically raw terrain. Calvin can't adjust to anything; his remarried mother (Annette Bening) now lives with a delightful Big Sur denizen (Antonio Banderas), yet his mother's serenity serves only to drive him a little crazier. It's an interesting conception of a character, and Dano, true to form, doesn't play Calvin for audience sympathy. Nor does he have much interest in keeping his scenes moving at the proper rhythm; he's a talented actor, but never one to get on with things.

Love, Kazan's script says, requires letting go, and something more and less than simple adaptability. It's refreshing to see a premise such as this one treated to a nonsmarmy telling. But the picture, intelligent but mild, has more of a 10-volt hum than a true spark.

 

MPAA rating: R (for language including some sexual references, and for some drug use)

Running time: 1:42

Cast: Paul Dano (Calvin Weir-Fields); Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks); Annette Bening (Gertrude); Antonio Banderas (Mort).

Credits: Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris; written by Zoe Kazan; produced by Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release.

 

 RSS

 

"Ruby Sparks" Movie Trailer

---

<< RETURN TO MOVIE REVIEWS ...

---

Recent Movie Reviews - Films in Theaters

---

Copyright © 2012 Tribune Media Services, Inc.