Ruby Sparks Review

Justin and I saw Ruby Sparks on September 8, 2012. This was an interesting movie with a brilliant cast, and great writing. Calvin Weir-Fields, played perfectly by Paul Dano, is a young novelist. He is searching for a new topic to write about as he has been suffering from writer's block. He also is in therapy dealing with the death of his father, as well as problems with his ex-girlfriend Lila. He dreams about a girl named Ruby Sparks, and instantly begins writing about her. As he is writing a new novel, the story he is writing is actually coming to life before his eyes. His imagination created the girl into a real world entity. He controls her actions/decisions as well as her emotional state. It leads to some great scenes, which really create some nice dramatic elements. Ruby is played by Zoe Kazan, and I was really impressed with her performance. She also wrote the story, and it shows a great level of creativity. The cast also features Chris Messina, as his brother Harry, Annette Benning as his mother, Gertrude, Deborah Ann Woll as Lila (great scene between the two of them about their break-up), Antonio Banderas as Mort (seems to be a step father type role), and Steve Coogan as Langdon Tharp, an author in his own right. The movie has some good comedic parts, but the story overall of the creation of a real life entity through imagination captivated me. The Ruby book begins to take a negative toll, leading to a great scene showing his depth of control over her. He realizes something has to change. The ending was really well done, and I thought it wrapped up everything positively to counter-balance some of the consequences of his novel. This movie was really well done with great acting from Dano and Kazan, good writing, and a great plot. 4/5!!!