Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

Written by Zoe Kazan

Starring Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Elliott Gould, Deborah Ann Woll, Alia Shawkat, Steve Coogan, and Aasif Mandvi

This fantasy rom-com boasts some smart things to say about the male entitlement that drives this story forward underneath a Nice Guy exterior. My mom had seen this when I was a kid, and I’m surprised I hadn’t watched it sooner. Then my buddy Anna recently suggested it in the wake of Obsession, followed by my encountering a Letterboxd review for Obsession that mentioned Ruby Sparks, too. So I went, “Well then! I suppose it’s time to finally see what this is all about.” I truly am fascinated by Zoe Kazan’s writing journey taking her down a road where she’d considered Paul Dano (her boyfriend at the time) for the part of Calvin. Damn, that’s very amusing to go, “Hey, this misogynistic, insecure, and controlling prick? I think my boyfriend could really flesh him out onscreen.” And look, now they’re married! Quite lovely indeed. In any case, they share the type of chemistry that has an odd sweetness to it, where it feels like everything should be going smoothly between these two on the road of romance, but it contrasts against the actual material of the story itself—a story where Calvin possesses such an explicit form of ownership over Ruby. This is an aspect that operates in the film’s favor, polishing up its rom-com surface while the darkness of what’s going on keeps swirling around the core of the narrative under Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s direction (they’d achieved a similar tonal goal for Little Miss Sunshine, which handles its own weighty material underneath its charming and comedic appearance, and hey, Dano was in that flick, too).

I’d brought up Obsession earlier, and it really is worth it to draw parallels between these two tales as they follow meek men who exert their own power against a woman and steal her agency away from her, forcing her to slot into an image that’s been crafted for the man’s preferences—an image that eventually breaks down when the man has to confront the consequences of his own actions and the ways in which his oh-so-precious control is tumbling out of his grasp. Hell, there’s even a chapter of Ruby and Calvin’s relationship that’s full of toxic codependency, and we can connect this smothering behavior to the codependency that’s spread throughout Obsession. Ultimately, I lean towards Obsession’s portrayal of this pathetic type of man and how that gets such a heartbreaking and bleak exploration on its horror path, but Ruby Sparks features its own admirable substance, with Calvin and Lila’s talk landing as one of the movie’s most crucial beats. It’s effective at highlighting the casual selfishness of this man who objectifies and dehumanizes the women in his life. He hasn’t built the roots that are required to ground his own character and create love for himself, so he tries to fill the void in his heart by projecting all of that onto other women and by hoping he can mold them into the likable and one-dimensional lover that he wants her to be. Plus, as a Daredevil fan, it’s quite a pleasant surprise to see Deborah Ann Woll show up as Lila.

But as much as I’m solidly enjoying what this movie provides, I do believe it could have pushed the narrative into greater depth. For example, Calvin is supposed to be an incredibly bright writer—really, a “genius,” although Calvin can’t stand that term being applied to him. But when I look at this guy, I struggle to see any of that light shining from him. He seems to be a mundane old human who’s too inert to actually implement any of the potential talent that he’s got inside of himself. Now, I acknowledge that maybe this is intentionally the point of the film. Maybe it’s supposed to be difficult to pinpoint any of the spark (ha-ha) in this seemingly plain man who’s deep in the clutches of anxiety and self-doubt. But if this is what’s happening, I still want to track down some sort of flash coming from this guy, and I’m not getting that, even when we reach the ending. It’s an element that keeps pricking away at my brain, and the same goes for another issue like Calvin’s mom and her boyfriend getting tossed into the narrative and not feeling all that fleshed-out in their limited screentime. It’s nice to have Annette Bening and Antonio Banderas pop in for those gigs, but still, I nitpick an aspect like that that.

Whatever my criticisms are that create some distance between myself and this rom-com, it does solidify itself and its commentary with the third-act typewriter scene. Dayton and Faris’s direction had been dressing up Kazan’s script in a light-footed mood that maintains coherence and doesn’t jar me out of my seat as I’m watching this relationship tread into increasingly worrisome territory. But that sequence is where this lets go of the breeziness in favor of a much more intense vibe that cranks up the terror of Calvin’s ability to delete Ruby’s free will. It’s grimly satisfying in its own strange fashion, because of course we were always going to end up at this point. We need to hit this stage and show off just how horrifying this situation can become. And so it comes across peculiarly when we arrive at a conclusion that’s more hopeful than I’d expected it to be. Sure, I can see it being plausible enough for this to happen in spite of whether or not Calvin deserves it. But even if we stick with this ending, I wonder if it could have been deployed with a sharper edge to it that can match up with what we’d seen during the third act.

These flaws that I’m pointing out don’t stop me from appreciating the wit in Ruby Sparks, though, and I can understand why this has stuck around since its 2012 release. Let’s dish out more tales that subvert the Manic Pixie Dream Girl stereotype, y’all (I still can’t get over Free Guy zipping right past the chance to do something clever like that)!

My final rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars