1. ‘Ruby Sparks’: Pure imagination - Singapore Movies - inSing.com Movies 2/15/13 5:39 PM
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‘Ruby Sparks’ is a brand new romantic comedy directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, the
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husband and wife team behind indie darling ‘Little Miss Sunshine’.
This equally quirky offering is about a prodigal novelist, Calvin Weir-Fields whose character comes
to life and eventually falls in love with him. Calvin is suffering from writer's block trying to write a
follow up to his majorly successful first novel. He is given an assignment by his therapist to write a
page about his dog Scotty, who he is somewhat embarrassed by.
This eventually serves as the spark that gets Calvin writing again as he dreams about a young
woman that draws a picture of him and Scotty that very night. He names her Ruby Sparks and
starts writing feverishly about her and soon realizes that he is falling in love with her.
His writer’s block finally goes away when stops doubting his work and starts writing about a
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2. ‘Ruby Sparks’: Pure imagination - Singapore Movies - inSing.com Movies 2/15/13 5:39 PM
character he loves, but is it okay to fall in love with a character you write?
It gets even more troubling when he wakes up one day and Ruby's in his house, having apparently
materialized herself from thin air.
‘Ruby Sparks’ is an intelligently written and nicely acted little film. Paul Dano plays Calvin, a weird
multi-dimensional character with an understated calmness. Calvin isn't just struggling with writer's
block, he lacks a social life and is awkward around people including his own family.
When he first dreams of Ruby, he starts writing with an enthusiasm that is impossible to not feel
happy for him. When Ruby finally appears in front of him, it shakes up his life.
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This leads to quite a few comedic scenes involving Calvin's brother, Harry, who hilariously goes Food Shopping
from being convinced that Calvin has lost his mind to being envious of Calvin's ability to create Critics' Reviews New Arrivals
someone out of thin air. Zoe Kazan (who also wrote the script) is a delight as she imbues Ruby Interviews Tech Weekly
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with a fresh air of exuberance that lights up the screen whenever she appears, literally becoming
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the one “sparks” up Calvin's life. Giveaways
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After all, she is the perfect embodiment of Calvin's dreams. Hence, she does things like strutting
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while dancing. She's everything Calvin wants to be but cannot be... and that's exactly why she's Movie Feature Preview Guide
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Though the concept of characters meeting their creators isn't exactly new by now, it's where the
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film goes with it that makes it stand out from the rest. ‘Ruby Sparks’ starts off as a magical
romance story but quickly cuts through the fluff of that to get to the darker, unsettling part of Search for feature articles
dealing with relationships and the set of problems that come along with them.
Through Calvin's apparent lack of know-how in the relationship problem solving department, the
film manages to become an intelligent commentary on a wide variety of subjects like idealism, the
creative process, male ego and controlling behaviour in relationships.
‘Ruby Sparks’ isn't without its flaws, for example; it takes a while for the movie to really get going
and is oddly paced but it does score in many other departments. It's consistently funny -- many
scenes will have you bursting into laughter simply because of the pure absurdity of the situations.
And many other scenes will leave you with questions of your own – such as whether it's okay to be
romancing and sleeping with a character you wrote.
Ultimately, ‘Ruby Sparks’ is great because it doesn't pretend to be what it isn't. It's basically a
beautifully written and acted film that thrives on the imagination of a simple “what if”.
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3. ‘Ruby Sparks’: Pure imagination - Singapore Movies - inSing.com Movies 2/15/13 5:39 PM
A thoughtful film that explores deep questions, ‘Ruby Sparks’ rises above the quirky facade that it
puts up to become one of the more insightful films of the year.
‘Ruby Sparks’ opens in theatres 20 Sep 2012
Dexian or just Dex if you have an inability to pronounce Chinese names, is a fervent film lover
who's known to read up on the most inane pieces of cinema trivia just so he has something to talk
about when he's drunk. When he's not watching something, he can be found reading other useless
Wikipedia articles on things like Nebulaphobia.
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