'Ruby' sparks with romance, fantasy
The smart thing about this amiable romance/fantasy is that it never explains how novelist Calvin Weir-Fields' literary character, Ruby Sparks, magically comes to life one day in his kitchen.
Did fans of Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" think less of the comedy because it never provided a scientific explanation for how Allen-surrogate Owen Wilson hopped in a car and traveled back in time?
Of course not.
In "Ruby Sparks," the married directing team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (they gave us the humanity-infused comedy "Little Miss Sunshine") treats the existence of Ruby Sparks as a matter-of-fact event while leapfrogging over mountains of horror and raunchy sex comedy clichés we'd expect in a movie like this.
Dayton and Faris, working from a screenplay by actress Zoe Kazan, introduce us to Calvin (Paul Dano), a literary wunderkind who hit "Catcher in the Rye"-level success at 19 with his first novel.
His second has been harder to get out than a kidney stone.
Creatively bereft and relentlessly pressured to produce, poor Calvin spills his hopes and insecurities to his shrink (Elliott Gould) in the movie's weakest device: the cheap and easy patient-shrink exchanges that force-feed us exposition.
Then the dreams begin.
The mysterious young woman who visits Calvin in the park says her name is Ruby Sparks. She's funny, cute and alive, and Calvin thinks she's perfect.
His dreams about Ruby become so vivid that they inspire Calvin to write his novel, using an old-fashioned typewriter. Ruby becomes so real to him that one day he hears her call to him.
There she is! Ruby (Kazan) stands before Calvin, exactly as he wrote her, filled with feisty fire, possessed of laughing eyes and an open heart.
Kazan wrote "Ruby Sparks" as a clever reinterpretation of the Greek myth of Pygmalion, whose sculptures came to life one day. Whatever Calvin writes, Ruby does, as he and his disbelieving brother Harry (Chris Messina) discover when Calvin writes that Ruby begins speaking French.
And then she does.
Realizing he has created his perfect woman, he vows, "I'll never write about her again!"
Really?
"Ruby Sparks" quickly transforms into an engaging lesson in ethical conduct: When a person has control over people and situations, how does he act? And why?
Calvin, by all counts, is a highly ethical man. Yet, when Ruby exerts the independent spirit he gave her, he becomes frustrated. So, he rewrites her into a fawning pet.
Things become complicated and turn dark as Calvin plays with his creation to find out what he wants. But does he really want to know?
Annette Bening plays Calvin's free-spirited mother living in a botanical oasis with her hunky artist lover (Antonio Banderas). Calvin visits them to introduce Ruby to his mom in a diverting, change-of scenery sequence captured in bright, colorful images by Matthew Libatique.
Nick Arata's surprisingly lush score adds extra depth to Kazan's quirky examination of power and desire, given realistic traction by Dano and Kazan, whose real-life relationship translates to the silver screen with sparkling ease.
"Ruby Sparks" opens at the River East and Century Centre in Chicago and the Evanston Century 18. It will expand to Orland Park, Lincolnshire and Warrenville on Aug. 10.
“Ruby Sparks”
★ ★ ★
Starring: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan
Directed by: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Other: A Fox Searchlight release. Rated R for drug use and language. 104 minutes