Being
a sucker for love stories I have sat through a lot of raved about
films, which will remain nameless, the past couple of years but today I
got suckered in big time by “Ruby Sparks”. This film is a well acted,
what could be a complicated screenplay but isn’t and direction that asks
you to just sit back and believe and believe I did.

The
movie starts as a fantasy when a one big hit writer, Calvin (Paul
Dana), is told by his therapist, Dr. Rosenthal, (Elliott Gould) to write
a story about the woman he has been dreaming about. His heroine is
named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan) who appears to him one day as he is
walking his dog Scotty, named after F. SCott Fitzgerald, who squats when
he urinates which disturbs Calvin more than anyone else. Ruby is the
perfect woman, just as he has written her, and he is overjoyed when
other people like his brother, Harry (Chris Messina) can see her too. To
prove to both of them that she isn’t an illusion Harry suggests that
Calvin sit down and write some quirks, like speaking French, into her
character and, yes, Ruby starts to speak in French.

Along
the way, reluctantly, he brings Ruby to his mother Gertrude (Annette
Bening) and her partner’s Mort (Antonio Banderas) house in Big Sur both
being hippies still smoking pot and growing everything healthy. and they
fall in love with Ruby.

Calvin
is a man and has to be in charge and, though he has made the perfect
woman, when she has a pass made at her by his editor, Steve (Langdon
Tharp) the jealousy comes out and he starts to change her with things
going downhill from there.

Yes,
once again you are asked to put aside your logic but that is what
movies are about: dreams, fantasies, being a puppeteer, seeing life as
you want it to be not as it is. And what is illogic about a man changing
things when they are perfect?!

The
acting by the leads, Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan, couldn’t be better and
Chris Messina as his brother is pitch perfect. The ‘old’ pros like
Gould, Bening and Banderas, though it took me a few minutes to recognize
the latter, light up the story and the screen in what are, basically,
bit parts.

The
direction by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris has a smart rythym about
it while the screenplay by the actress Zoe Kazan makes you feel for
both characters even when you might think Calvin is blowing it. This is a
love story for adults without the off color remarks or supposedly body
jokes most films feel they have to have today. There is humor, tears,
touching of the heart and the feeling that all our stories are always
being revised by an unknown writer and we are just their puppets. This
is also one of the few movies lately that has an excellent soundtrack
moving the picture along but not interfering or overpowering it.

Sadly
the last minute of the film stops it from being a perfect movie but
then if you are a romantic how else would you want it to turn out?

“Ruby
Sparks” is R rated for some drug use, pretty mild ‘offensive’ language
and sexual references. but there is nothing in this film to shock or
offend a teenager but it might help them believe in love.