Ruby Sparks

A good judge of how much I liked a movie is whether I turn on the radio for the drive home. Do I get in and immediately turn it on or do I drive home in silence and think about what I just saw? For Ruby, I drove home with no sound other than my own voice using the voice memo device on my phone so I could remember anecdotes for this entry.

Ruby Sparks is Stranger Than Fiction meets Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (yes I said that in the memo last night). The premise is that a writer, Paul Dano, writes a story about a girl who comes to life. He grapples with the problems posed by his ability to make her do whatever he writes on paper and the repercussions that come from writing too vaguely or too specifically. Much like that episode of Treehouse of Horror or Ashton Kutcher's Butterfly Effect (which I never saw but heard was quite good).

I didn't think much from seeing the previews. Then I started reading not only about how great it is but also about the background of the making of it. You see, the writer of the movie plays the girlfriend that the writer in the film dreamed of and she was writing it to star her real life boyfriend to play the writer that creates her. Wait, I can do better: The actress that plays the imaginary girlfriend is the actual girlfriend of the guy that plays the writer in the movie and she wrote the movie about a guy creating a girl. Once more: Paul Dano, the writer in the movie, is dating Zoe Kazan, the actress that plays the girlfriend in the film. Kazan wrote the screenplay along with Dano, knowing that he would play the writer and she the girlfriend. That's cool. What caught my eye more was the fact that the people that did Little Miss Sunshine haven't done anything since and decided to do this film immediately.

The movie was fantastic. Every character was endearing and well played. Dano and Kazan brought their off-screen love to the film. Annette Bening and Antonia Banderas have a Meet the Parents-ish scene playing Dano's quirky mom and stepdad. I knew I'd like this movie when at the start, Dano's brother, played by Chris Messina, is reading the early draft of Dano's story (the one that will eventually manifest a woman) and warns him that a girl with lots of quirks is actually not appealing to an audience because women like that don't really exist. That's been my exact problem with all these indie films this summer. The girls are these free spirited women that make their uptight male counterparts feel alive but by the end of the movie they just seem like they're mentally disabled (KIERA KNIGHTLEY AHH)

Well, having exhausted all the points from my memo I'll leave with just the high recommendation to check out, Ruby Sparks.

Second movie in a row with spotlight swimming. At least this was nudity free