Ruby Sparks
The Ruby Sparks Effect
Definition: after you watch this movie, you'll feel like a rainbow just ran you over. it'd be perplexing, yet leaving a glow on you, like when you remember something fond that you'd forgotten and hadn't had time to recall.
Disclaimer: you have to watch it with complete suspension of utter disbelief. don't hog on the fact that it can't be real, it's a movie. LOL take it w a pinch of salt.
People come and go. What's new soon becomes old, and life is like a train, people get on and get off, and you move, experiencing things together, sometimes nice, sometimes not so much.. but this is a story of boy meets girl. How? He thinks of her. Fantasizing a character out of a golden silhouette in a dream. Dreaming up a dream girl. a manix pixie dream girl (MPDG), romantic interests of the male protagonist who have eccentric personality quirks and are unabashedly girlish.. think Zoey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer. The romance in the film definitely fills up the atmosphere, but the little things keep your mind nibbling on corners of conceptions. Here's the trailer!
Context:
Zoe Kazan, who stared in Happythankyoumoreplease, The Private lives of Pippa Lee, and a couple of other shows, wrote the screenplay for this movie and acts as the main female lead. An actress and a playwright, who graduated from Yale doing Theatre. Definitely talented. and if you're not convinced, watch Ruby Sparks and you will be =) Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who directed Little Miss Sunshine, directed this. So yeah, husband and wife directors, girlfriend and boyfriend (Paul Dano) actress and actor. The cohesiveness of the film means no boring moments nor awkward pauses. very smooth, and I loved it from the moment it started till it ended! And Antonio Banderas was such a caricature of his Zorro self, imagine a bohemian-hippie-Spanish-suave.. very peculiar indeed! =D
The colors and film direction was amazing, I'm not sure how to express or describe it, but the colors blended so well, and the moments were captured just right. not overdone, and so real. Leaves you knowing the movie isin't real, but it's a movie about a book about a book!
In Greek mythology, Pygmalion was a sculptor who made an ivory statue of a woman, so beautiful and so life-like that he fell in love with it. Venus brought her to life, and the rest is history (but not in reality). The Pygmalion effect is probably the undermining theme of the movie.
Synopsis:
Calvin has an imaginary friend!
Yes, the lonely dorkus-extremus nerd-a-geek wrote one book and became a genius. Pet peeve? being called a genius. Then he never wrote again. Writer's block 4eva! His shrink, Dr Rosenthal, tells him to write, write a story about meeting someone, write badly. whatever, just write. Then Calvin has a dream about a beautiful girl, with burning red hair and blue eyes, inquisitive and curious. She steals his heart, naturally, and he writes, consumed by his ideas of her. He writes to be with her, falling in love with his art, his muse. One day, he wakes up and she's there, real in the flesh and bone. Donning purple tights and a bright blue dress, she literally brings color into his world, his world being the inside of his white and washed out apartment. So begins a love story, of boy creates girl. Calvin manifests the girl of his dreams and has the power to tweak and fix her, just by typing on his dingy-old typewriter.
I just don't really like how the aliens bombed his house and they turned into dandelions. JUST KIDDING!! watch the movie for the real story. totally worth the time.
In my head, my brain is like woah:
It's creepy, yet it really reminds you how special people are the way they've come to be, habits and tendencies and bugs and all. What's the point of being with someone perfect? Although Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend) which is a Japanese Drama about dating a perfect boyfriend-robot, might differ! I think one of the most important parts of a relationship or friendship, understanding another person well and accepting them for 'who they are' is probably all you need. the give and take. Fixing someone, to your expectations, is just being chauvinistic and thinking you're right. A little like the white man's dream, that was kinda facetious of 'em wasn't it? but yeah, helping someone fix their problems, or to become a better person for their own sake should be the main thing, not fixing them to your needs. Kinda like the wierdass robotization of Nicole Kidman in The Stepford Wives. People are the most complex creatures, but we are the smartest because we have communication.
Favourite moments:
When Calvin first meets Ruby (twice), she's a quirky, inquisitive damsel, and the angle of the light just sets the mood right. The newness of their meeting, clashes with their overpowering chemistry. They need to meet each other. They have to. They're meant to be. That definitely comes through, that's what love at first sight is supposed to be like.. =D
Another favorite point is when he is finally convinced she is real, but he had just broken her heart, and he whisks her off her feet, hauls her over his shoulder and calms her down, madly, fiercely in love with her. Its the best thing that's ever happened to him and he knows it. He's got it, and he's only got to cherish it because she's his 'now'. Really moving. Have you ever known that someone was right for you, you knew you could never let it go? He did, and he was scared too, but he GRABBED LIFE BY THE BALLS her and held her like he would never let go!
Disclaimer: don't be distracted by his rapist glasses. HAHA he's not a perv, rather gentlemanly!
Rant and Ramble:
We all start as strangers, and do we really like people for just who they are? I don't believe so. I think its a spoonful of opportunity, a whole bowl of chance, a few ticks off the clock of timing, the experiences weathered together, and a dash of magic. In this world of billions of people, these are the ones we had the blessing of meeting and knowing. If you think about it, what are the odds? and sometimes, we just like people, chemistry, inexplicable. funny isin't it! If we could change something that easily, would that change have any meaning? What would we do, what would you change about yourself. Any change would be to satisfy a preconceived notion about what is good or bad, but no one ever is anything, can we be defined by single actions we take? We might react unfairly to something that puts us off, but every reaction we have has an explanation, it's only the extent. We might get jealous of the person we are dating, just because we are insecure because the prev one was a douche. Does that make us jealous by nature? We might not be open hearted to extremes, because the last time we were spontaneous, we ended up getting hurt or in trouble. Afraid to get bitten twice, does that make us undaring? Scaredy-cats?
And how much do we ever know anyone? define 'knowing someone'. I read this once, I can't remember where, but it said that we only ever know things about people, we know their favourite colour, and we can probably predict certain things about how they'll react. But that assumes they don't change. And people change. At least I think and believe so. We grow, and life changes us. Hopefully for the better.
I guess when it's easy to lose yourself and you sense of 'self' when you're in a really good friendship or relationship. you lose your identity in the role you think you are supposed to fit, or other people's expectations of you. A self-fulfilled prophecy sorta.
I loved this movie! Best rom-com-drama of the year I'd say. =) but yeah, here's my take on it. GO WATCH IT NOW, GO GO! Paul Dano And Zoe Kazan, Real-life and on-screen couple. Mega cute.
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