Ruby Sparks is about a nebbish novelist struggling with writer's block, as well as failing at finding any love in his life. He has a dream about a mysterious beautiful girl and begins to write about the character of Ruby Sparks. Fantasy becomes reality and soon novelist Calvin finds that Ruby has become reality, a living, breathing entity living with him and in love. Things take a turn for the sinister when Calvin realises he can control Ruby by writing anything about her. If he wants her to speak French, he writes it. If he wants her to be miserable, he writes it.
Ruby Sparks is a genius script from an incredibly talented writer. Not only is it smart and funny but it also deals with the male desire to control women in a brilliant and increasingly disturbing way. Calvin is not a likeable character. Early in the film, his scenes with his therapist (Elliott Gould) are almost unbearable. Even Paul Dano fails to make his whiny, self-absorbed Calvin a pleasure to watch. It is only when he starts creating Ruby that he becomes interesting and slightly more relateable.
Ruby starts off as the perfect girl. When he begins writing her, she is like the girl you fall in love with. There are no faults. Ruby is completely loveable and you want to spend every moment with her. Calvin's reaction to the presence of his dream girl in his mundane reality makes for some hilarious scenes as he struggles to come to terms with the magic of what has happened. Calvin becomes more bearable as he falls in love and becomes happier.
Then reality invades the fantasy of the dream girl. Like with all relationships, Calvin starts to find faults. She is not the dream girl he hoped. She is lonely and bored and wants to have a life outside of her time with Calvin. When Calvin writes what he now wants Ruby to be, it is the most scary and sinister part of the film but also, thanks to Zoe Kazan's perfect performance, sadly hilarious. His desire to be in control and to keep Ruby perfect is utterly believable but everything he writes about her has its flaws.
Ruby Sparks has so much to say about love, relationships, men and women and it does it in a completely entertaining and often very funny way. It unravels slightly in the final scenes but Kazan's witty and postmodern script is still extremely fresh and funny right to the end. Ruby Sparks is a dream come true of a movie; incredibly smart and funny just like its star and writer.
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