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They say
the pen is
mightier than the sword. Well, what if the pen is also mightier than
your
average online dating service? The latest film from the Little Miss
Sunshine
(2006) directors (Jonathan
Dayton and Valerie Faris) has a storyline seemingly pulled from a
script that
even Andrew McCarthy would have rejected during his eighties heyday.
Calvin
Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is an American writer struggling to come up
with his
next book when the inspiration for his new character comes to fruition.
Not
just in his overly active imagination, but in the living breathing
world as
well. This dream girl of his literal fantasies is called, Ruby Sparks.
Paul
Dano has proved
to audiences he’s here to stay. In There will be Blood (2007) his conniving Eli
Sunday stood up against Daniel Day Lewis’s Oscar winning oil tycoon
Daniel
Plainview. He has also appeared in Hollywood blockbusters like the
upcoming Looper
(2012), Cowboys and Aliens (2011) and HBO’s The Sopranos
for
television. Ruby seems an odd choice for an actor who is
currently doing
a good job at climbing the Hollywood ladder.
There is no meat on the bone to this flick, neither is it
broad enough
in style to satisfy much more than your average high school hipster. The jokes are funny and the actors bring them
more life than what they would have on paper. Annette Bening, Antonio
Banderas
and Elliott Gould add some needed color as Calvin’s hippy mother,
boyfriend and
therapist. The problem with Ruby is that it never goes beyond
its simple
and quite juvenile pretense. The film has predictable turns and a very
obvious
Hollywood ending not unlike the cringe worthy (500) Days of Summer (2009). The film does have a
nice clean production style with much of film being set in Calvin’s
post-modern
white home. This leaves the focus on the characters and this works
nicely. When
the camera does venture outside, it's always light and sunny. This is
the
overall tone for this film. While Calvin’s obsession with Ruby has some
darker
moments, they don’t stay for long and are usually written around
comedic
moments. Newcomer Zoe Kazan, who is also the writer of the piece, plays
Ruby
with vibrancy and charm. Acting very much like the kind of girl that
Calvin
would dream up and the two actors work very well together.
Ruby
Sparks seems
like a very
odd follow-up to the director’s success all the way back in 2006 with Little
Miss Sunshine. Sunshine was
critically
acclaimed across the globe and very left of center to typical Hollywood
fare.
Despite its ensemble cast (which is a great award winner in the city of
celluloid), it was a story of a fractured family with real problems. Ruby is a fluffy fun romantic comedy
aimed at the younger audiences. While it
works on a simple level, its twee concept and lack of bite may keep
audiences
at bay. It is a cute romantic
comedy with adequate acting and sufficient laughs. Those who haven’t
completed
high school just found their next date movie. The older viewers out
there are
just going to have to wait for Rachael McAdams to lose her memory again
to get
their next dose of romantic thrills.
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