Ruby Sparks (2012)

A lonely and eccentric young novelist starts writing a book about his dream girl, only to wake up one morning and see her right before him.

Ruby Sparks misplaces your dreams and crawls under your skin. At first, you get a glimpse of reality. You see how it is; you get to know Calvin, the way he experiences the world, and the way the world experiences him. Then, you get a glimpse of fantasy, an insight into what is happening inside Calvin’s head. What follows is beautiful montages of reality and fantasy, resulting in the marriage of the two that creates the predicament. The comedy, as well as the suspense of that predicament, work perfectly on different levels. Calvin and his brother Harry know she is a product of the former’s imagination. Then, everyone else doesn’t, including Ruby. As the audience, you know all that, but no one knows where the story is heading. No one knows how this love story is going to end. Will she find out? How will she find out? If she will, how will she react? What will that mean for them individually? What will it mean for them collectively?

Real-life couple Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan (also producers) have amazing chemistry, chemistry initially created by Zoe Kazan herself (script) and brought to life by directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris [Well-known for Little Miss Sunshine (2006)]. As for the story itself, there are numerous ways to interpret its meaning. My advice is, don’t try to make sense of the “how” just of “why”. The way I see it, our imagination is limitless. The world we create inside our heads can be anything we want it to be. All emotions and feelings can change into what we want them to be, and we can be the people we always wanted to be. A wise man once said that the writer’s job is the loneliest in the world. Not only do they isolate themselves from the rest of the world to write, but they also become gods of worlds that don’t exist. I believe the problem arises when “God” comes back from that isolation and realises their lack of control over reality.

Again, you can make whatever you want of it; there are no right or wrong answers. If there is something certain, it is the fact that it is beautifully made and worth your while. Ruby Sparks is part of a series of films that I believe belongs to Hollywood’s most appealing side – and I review them back to back. Similar films I have reviewed and couldn’t recommend more are Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012).

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