Review: Ruby Sparks
How to Create Your Dream GirlOriginally posted on September 29, 2012
"This is the true and impossible story of my very great love: Ruby Sparks. You may see this and think it's magic. But falling in love is an act of magic."
Loved, loved, loved this movie. Although in fairness, I think I fell in love with the plot as soon as I read about it: Lonely writer writes about fantasy dream girl, and one day wakes up to find she's somehow transformed from ink and paper to flesh and blood. Of course, we all know that the movie won't just end happily that way... Will reality end up ruining the fantasy?
Loved the movie's behind-the-scenes situation as well: The movie's screenwriter plays the titular Ruby Sparks; the lead actor is her real-life boyfriend. (Naturally, they make an adorable couple.) The film's directors directed Little Miss Sunshine, another one of my favorites. So, simply put... What was not to like?
With expectations as high as those, I was steeling myself for disappointment going into the movie theater. I know Entertainment Weekly had liked it, saying something along the lines that it was smart, charming, and whimsical, but I know it had gotten its own share of bad reviews. It had a 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which meant that it was good, but not that good.
Well, I'm glad that this movie I waited to see for so long and wanted to see so badly lived up to my expectations. In its own way, it's a very simple, contained film, but I loved the writing and the "lessons" it imparted felt real and profound.
To summarize: Calvin Weir-Fields was once a boy wonder, writing a bestselling, critically acclaimed novel in his teens. Now, ten years later, he's struggling to replicate his past success. While suffering from a mighty case of writer's block, his psychiatrist suggests he write about someone who will love his dog (pysch code for "himself") unreservedly. That very same night, Calvin has a dream about meeting such a girl, and he spends the next few days in a daze writing about this dream girl, inventing a lavish backstory and giving her nitty-gritty details. The character becomes such a three-dimensional person that she becomes, well, a three-dimensional person. Named Ruby Sparks. Who doesn't know she's just a figment of Calvin's imagination.
Because Ruby is Calvin's creation, though, she is still bound to what he writes about her on his trusted typewriter. Calvin vows early on he will never write anything to change her, but this is a promise we always know he is going to break.
I saw some reviews on the internet that call Calvin insecure, loser-ish, and even creepy, but I just found him totally relatable. If there's one thing I'm finding out about myself, it's that I really relate to these very introverted, loner-ish, awkward characters... Calvin fit right into my wheelhouse.
I get his mental struggle dealing with heightened expectations after his early success. A character in the movie says, "It's easier if you've ever only been mediocre." Isn't that the way??? Sometimes you just luck onto success, and you waste the rest of your life trying to replicate it. And you're afraid not only of disappointing others, but disappointing yourself as well. In the climax of the movie, when he has Ruby say, "You're a genius" over and over, it's heartbreaking and so, so illuminating about his character.
Likewise, I've seen some critics deride Ruby as a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I don't think this is wholly the case, although I definitely see the Zooey Deschanel-ishness of her character. Sure, she's light and breezy, but I think that's just in keeping with her being Calvin's dream girl. From the movie, I still get the sense that Ruby is a person, and not just the object of Calvin's affection.
I think this distinction is basically the whole point of the movie. Calvin's brother even tells him early on: "The quirky, messy women whose problems make them appealing are not real."
I don't know... Maybe it helps that the screenwriter is a woman; Ruby's fears and feelings ring more genuine to me.
On a personal note, I appreciate the film's central premise: Real-life people can never compete with fictional characters because they're—well—real-life. Fictional characters are ideals and concepts, but in real life, people change, they get bored, they make mistakes and do hurtful things. But reality is still reality; it's the only place you can feel and grow. You take risks when you live, but you live.
As much as I know it's a myth, sometimes the belief persists that you'll meet a person and bam! All problems are solved. But real life is not like the movies... The story goes on even after the credits have rolled, or the last page turned.
In real life, we never get any guarantees for a happy ending. We only get beginnings or opportunities; the rest is still unwritten.
