One Sentence: Independently dark and lovely.
Rated: R
Release Date: 03-Aug-2012
Nudity: None
The drive to write, to produce, to create words on a page or in my case a digital page is hard to do sometimes. You are supposed to write something, that has some sort of meaning to someone that you hope someone will read. You think that no one is reading this, no one cares, no one thinks I am any good. When you sit in front of a keyboard with a blank canvas and have to create something, sometimes it is just too much. You write about what you love, movies, life, a red headed girl with blue eyes so perfect they could stop the world from spinning. A girl named Ruby Sparks. Sometimes you find something to finally put down on paper.
I am not having that issue with Ruby Sparks, as the words pour out about this lovely romance that gets a little bit dark in parts, but is justified in the places it goes. The movie blends the creativity of a Charlie Kaufman style story, with the light quirkyness of the current independent movie style. Young rich awkward male lost in the world they have made for themselves led down a new path from the girl of their dreams, and things don’t always go as planned. It seems like we have seen it a lot before, but Ruby Sparks makes it all seem a little bit better. A little bit smarter. Not forcing a feeling on us. It comes naturally, we are not being hit over the head with the independent movie baseball bat of feeling. This is what I like about Ruby Sparks. Even though it goes into a fantastic realm, it feels real, natural, and not forced.
Ruby Sparks is played and written by Zoe Kazan, a girl who seems familiar but I can not place her in anything else. Her writing for herself seems perfect and that she created a character that lives inside of her and it comes bursting out in Ruby Sparks. Paul Dano is there to support her and bring the movie back down to earth. They work together in an amazing way. Supporting roles by Annette Benning and Antonio Banderas are wonderful as well.
Ruby Sparks is one of the independents that I wish we would see more of. Where it flips the script just a little bit and breaks out of the format. It delivers the right amount of everything it is supposed to at the right time. In this summer full of crazy sci-fi blockbusters, this might be a little movie that you can take a break with and have a great time.
