Seduced by the promise of another Manic Pixie Dream Girl movie and the indie soundtrack of the trailer, I spent my Orange Wednesday watching Ruby Sparks, the latest offering by married directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (of Little Miss Sunshine fame).
The concept is intriguing; Calvin Weir-Fields, a New York Times Best-selling author and "genius" (though he doesn't like that word) is struggling with writers' block, to the extent that he is seeing a psychiatrist to help get his creative juices flowing again. Calvin is given an assignment; to write a single page about someone who accepts Scotty, his dog who embarrassingly "pees like a girl", just the way he is.
Calvin freely admits that he has no friends besides his brother Harry, but that night he dreams of a meeting with a beautiful redhead in the park. The mysterious girl, conveniently enough, finds his dog and its quirks endearing. Bolting upright in bed, it's a race to the typewriter and thus, Ruby Sparks is born.
Ruby has all the usual characteristics of your average MPDG - artistic endeavours, outlandish and unpredictable behaviour such as jumping into a pool with her clothes on and going commando at a nightclub, a complicated past (she got kicked out of high school for sleeping with her art teacher), right down to the block fringe.
Calvin writes obsessively day and night and finds himself falling in love with his leading lady. Luckily for him, she materialises one morning in his kitchen, clad only in one of his shirts. It may seem the perfect solution for the lonely young writer, but he soon discovers that the woman of his dreams doesn't quite match up in reality...
I hate to admit it as a feminist but I love the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope. I know it's problematic - the idea of a man projecting his ideals onto a woman, not loving her but the idea of her and expecting her to give his life meaning. Maybe my interest is fuelled by the desire to know what everyone has asked themselves at some point in their lives - what do the opposite sex want? Is this what I need to be in order to be loved, adored, fascinating to men?
Or perhaps it's just my infatuation with Zooey Deschanel talking.
Ruby Sparks is similar to (500) Days of Summer in the sense that both concern the fate of MPDG's and the somewhat selfish men who idolise them. However I found Ruby Sparks to be more of a cautionary tale than it's predecessor. Perhaps this is because the screenplay was written by a woman (the actress playing Ruby, Zoe Kazan, no less) and therefore is a more heartfelt critique of the stereotype. Calvin's brother Harry states the fact: Women like this aren't real. They don't exist.
(500) Days of Summer showed Tom falling apart as a result of this dysfunctional relationship dynamic - causing the majority of male viewers to denounce Summer as a bitch; but no-one could accuse Ruby of this, as this projection of male ideals on a female is so much more literal. She is the one who is most drastically affected and controlled, Calvin is her puppet-master.
Calvin has no real social or working life and as such, he discourages Ruby from getting a job. When she calls him to say she's out with friends at a bar, it's the final straw. Despite swearing to his brother after her initial appearance that he would never use his power to alter her, out comes the typewriter and suddenly Ruby is eager to hotfoot it home to her man.
This desire to control Ruby did make for some great comedy - she pings from one emotional polar opposite to the other, one moment extremely needy and tearful; the other ecstatically happy.
Although both Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan are decent actors, I found neither one charismatic enough to carry a romantic comedy, even an "indie" one. This was a problem in particular with regards to Ruby. We are assumedly supposed to fall in love with her as deeply as Calvin, but I found Kazan rather unappealing. Her character didn't have enough substance to hold my attention, though maybe this is because of the way Calvin has written her - without depth, nothing but the ghostly figure from his dreams. That's not to say the two had no chemistry, being an off-screen couple such was an inevitability; the kisses shared and montage of fun-filled dates blended with French music made me desirous to reproduce such moments in my own life.
The supporting cast was strong though we didn't see enough of them, making Ruby and Calvin's relationship seem ever-more claustrophobic. Antonio Banderas as Calvin's step-father Mort stole the show and most of the laughs too.
The ending was problematic for me, I felt our male protagonist had understood his lesson but not learnt it; things turned out a bit too easy for him. In conclusion, though poignant and cute, Ruby Sparks won't remain in my memory as a must-see movie from 2012. At the end of the day, it's not about finding your perfect partner, it's about finding a partner who becomes perfect to you.
PS - Anyone know the name of the zombie movie they watch at the open air movie theatre? Now THAT looked like a film worth seeing.
Edit: I've done my research and it's Dead Alive (1992) dir. Peter Jackson. Watch this space...
No comments:
Post a Comment