Movie Review: Ruby Sparks.

I was really excited to watch this movie. I had been stalking it since right before it was released in theaters. I was reading an article about Zoe Kazan, whom I love because she is extremely interesting, and she mentioned she had written a movie and was going to star in it with her real life boyfriend, Paul Dano (whom I also love). I was beyond stoked.... until I found out it only had a limited release and wasn't coming anywhere near where I live, rude! So I patiently waited until it came out on DVD and promptly ran to the video store that very day... it was gone. So finally last Friday I went to try again and it was finally there.

Ruby Sparks follows Calvin (Dano), a Salinger-like author who wrote a best selling novel at nineteen. Calvin is having a bad year between a break up from his girlfriend of five years and writer's block. Calvin is the kind of guy who buys a dog so he can meet people, but it's just his luck that Scotty (named after F. Scott Fitzgerald), is just as afraid of people as he is.

While in a weekly session with his therapist (played by a wonderfully Jewish Elliot Gould), Calvin is assigned to write something, anything at all, especially something bad. Following direction Calvin goes home and creates his dream girl, literately. He has a dream about Ruby (Kazan) and writes about her the next day. He becomes so taken with the idea of this character he has created he finds himself wanting to spend all of his time writing so he can spend more time with her. Little does he know he is actually willing her into existence.

The movie is witty, fun, romantic, and touching. It creatively plays with the idea of how much control one should have over another in a relationship. Dano and Kazan have more "sparks" on screen than the Fourth of July, but it's the supporting cast that makes the movie that much better. Chris Messina all but steals the show as the meat-head, jock older brother. Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas are fantastically quirky as Calvin's mom and step dad. In my opinion Ruby Sparks is more like Ruby Wildfire. XOXO.