Movie Review: 'Ruby Sparks'

Directors:  Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
Rating R‎‎. Running Time: ‎104 minutes
Stars: Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Elliott Gould, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas

Remember the quirky, adorable film Little Miss Sunshine?

Directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris make similar magic with Ruby Sparks, an utterly original movie starring Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan. Dano was the intentionally mute Goth kid in Sunshine; Kazan, who wrote the Ruby Sparks script, is Dano's real-life girlfriend. In fact, Kazan (who happens to be the granddaughter of famed director Elia Kazan) says that she wrote the screenplay with the idea of her and Dano playing the leads.

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Dano's character, Calvin Weir-Fields, is an accomplished novelist in his late 20s who is suffering from writer's block. On the advice of his shrink (played by Elliott Gould), the somewhat nerdy Calvin tries writing about the woman of his dreams. He fashions her from a fresh-faced redhead he ran into in the park, and soon his words are flowing onto the page and Ruby Sparks (Kazan) takes human form. Like Pygmalion's sculpture from Greek myth, Ruby shows up in the flesh in Calvin's apartment, ready to be more than just his muse.

Zoe Kazan, writer and costar of 'Ruby Sparks' — Courtesy Fox Searchlight Pictures

Of course, Calvin can't quite believe what's happening, and Dano's ability to channel that anxious confusion is brilliant, as is Kazan's deftness in communicating her character's laid-back free spirit. The two have natural chemistry, even as Calvin realizes he can write Ruby's qualities — she speaks French, she's a fabulous cook — to suit him. In an appropriately disturbing scene, we see the potential horror of this arrangement, as Calvin is indeed puppeteer to Ruby the puppet.