Ruby Sparks

Here’s another movie I watched on a small screen in the back of the chair in front of me on a long haul flight from the UK. I’m pretty convinced that it’s not the best way for me to watch serious movies (I also watched How to Train your Dragon 2 which I really liked so the small screen and cramped position seems to work for kids films…).

It’s not that I didn’t like Ruby Sparks I just didn’t get into it. Perhaps I needed to concentrate more, perhaps I needed a bigger screen but probably I needed to not be on an aeroplane!

Anyway, quit the whinging woman write about the movie!

I liked the idea behind this movie, it brings up some really interesting issues. What would you change about the person you love if you could? and would you? and should you? I think we all have things about the people we hold dearest that we think we would like to change but would they still be the same person if you did change them? Probably yes if you just stopped them chewing their nails, but maybe not if you tried to change their feelings toward you or basic parts of their personality.

The main character, let’s call him “the writer” played by Paul Dano, brings to life his perfect girl through the magic of typewriter… those things are so friggin’ magical! The problem, of course, with writing your perfect partner is that once they begin experiencing life other than how you wrote it, they begin to change and do you rewrite them if you don’t like the changes?

It really is very clever. What would we do with the power to change those around us if we could? This guy writes his dream manic pixie girl who is adventurous, smart and totally in love with him but as she begins to experience life she begins to change from the person he initially wrote. This is another interesting point about how those around us change and, hopefully, we change with them. Sometimes those changes don’t suit us but I think it’s probably not a good idea to try to rewrite someone, it’s probably better to change yourself.

The writer here starts out a nice enough washed up loser type (those things all go together right?) but by the end it’s hard to feel much sympathy for him as he goes about the business of rewriting his perfect girl over and over again. It’s horrible to watch and my sympathy was all with Ruby.

These rewrites make the movie hard going at times and the writer just got creepier and creepier. I guess that’s the point in the end that this kind of control of someone can end up like a horror film. It’s not normal. It’s cruel.

I also just find Paul Dano a little creepy anyway. I’ve mainly seen him in creepier roles I suppose which doesn’t help.

I really wish I hadn’t watched this on the plane. In future I will stick to kid’s films … and maybe action.