Spoiler Warning: This review features narrative spoilers throughout the text and goes into detail about the ending of the film.
"Quirky, messy women whose problems only make them endearing are not real."
Zoe Kazan’s Ruby Sparks has been a film on my to-watch list for some time now. The sheer presence of Paul Dano and his remarkable record was enough to draw me in. However, the combination of Kazan herself and Little Miss Sunshine directors, Dayton and Faris, was what really sealed the deal.
Indeed, all of the factors that drew me in were entertaining throughout. Dano never disappoints me, and whilst this isn’t his most yielding performance, he’s perfect as Calvin. Kazan, opposite him, overtakes for most of the film, providing a fantastic performance in the titular role. Dayton and Faris are competent behind the camera; like Dano, they are more reserved here than in their prior effort, but all the same produce some honourable work.
However, what is most important for this film is Kazan’s screenplay. In multiple places, she has denounced Ruby to be a Manic-Pixie-Dream-Girl. Yet, it is the most damning character assassination of that trope that I have ever seen. I, personally, feel as though Ruby is an MPDG because Calvin writes her as such. It feels like a vital commentary on male writers not understanding women and how to write them in fiction. The slow demise of Ruby’s individuality and sanity is a direct cause of the single controlling factor behind her decisions – Calvin. She never feels like a real person, and whilst there’s a different critique within that, it works so well for this film.
It is a remarkable screenplay, for the most part. It opens up, as one might expect, Calvin as a sorry writer struggling to repeat the success of his first publication. Ruby as a figment of his imagination, his greatest fantasy that he holds so close, refusing to let go of when it outgrows him. It feels so perverted when he returns to write about her. What the screenplay does so well is shift from a quirky romantic comedy to a psychological thriller in some ways. The final confrontation between Calvin and Ruby is humiliating; it removes any connection the audience and Calvin may have made. It is a perfect deconstruction of how restrictive women characters can be in cinema or fiction in general. It’s why the ending feels so wrong, a cop-out, a studio ending to the very film that reviles male-written women in mainstream fiction. On the other hand, there is a sick twist in a narrative fashion, which is what redeems somewhat. Much of that finale reads like a horror film. If only Calvin felt like a monster rather than a redeemed hero.
Regardless, Ruby Sparks is absolutely worth your time. It’s fascinating to see a woman’s perspective on an unrealistic male fantasy. This openly digs a grave for character clichés found in the likes of the MPDG, ridicules them, makes them look outlandish before throwing the dirt on its corpse. I pray that Kazan writes more stuff because I think this is one of the more interesting romantic comedies to come out in the last twenty years.
Connor Clarke Film 