Ruby Sparks

Released:  July 25^th, 2012

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Fox Searchlight

Starring:  Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas

Directed by:  Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris

Written by:  Zoe Kazan

Personal Bias Alert:  loved Little Miss Sunshine, likes mixed tones

4.8 of 10

            The central conceit of Ruby Sparks is that an author can create a person, and not in a metaphorical sense.  A flesh-and-blood Ruby (Zoe Kazan) manifests after Paul Dano’s Calvin writers her up on a typewriter.  Strangely, accepting this phenomenon is the least problematic aspect of Ruby Sparks, which plays as haphazardly with its ideas and tones as Calvin does with his newfound creation.

            Calvin, we quickly learn, is the type of sensitive man that’s as fake as his imagined manic pixie dream girl.  He treads lightly and fumbles over words but quickly reveals a domineering, petulant side.  The pairing of the two archetypes in their meticulously postured home (Calvin has made quite a bit of money from a book years earlier) is as twee as it gets.  Those in tune with this aesthetic will likely find Ruby Sparks’ romantic meanderings endearing, as much time is spent watching the couple, or more specifically Calvin, traverse the ups and downs of the relationship.  However, nothing much is narratively gained during this time, leaving your enjoyment entirely dependent on how much you like being around these two people.

            For such a high-concept pitch, it’s disappointing how much Ruby Sparks leans on aesthetic.  There’s a real sense that Kazan, who also wrote the screenplay, was hesitant to dive into everything the material has to offer.  The film flits around ideas of idealization, relationship expectations, and the ramifications of free will without ever really exploring them.  It seems that Kazan was content with planting an interesting idea inside a charming rom-com, which is sure to frustrate anyone who either yearns for something more or is bothered by the horrify things going on just beneath the surface.

            It’s those horrifying things that stood in the way for me, namely the complete imbalance of power between Calvin and Ruby.  In real life, a relationship that is controlled through physical or emotional methods is considered abusive, and Calvin’s complete control of Ruby always has that lingering feel.  How, then, are we supposed to find delight in their happy moments?  This may be a low blow, but I imagine that the movie has gotten a pass because it was written by a woman.  A man writing about a woman being used would invite knee-jerk accusations of sexism.  A woman writing about this is assumed to be giving some sort of commentary, except Kazan avoids commentary throughout most of the film.  Any intellectual debates the film might incite will come from the person reading into the film’s backstory, not from anything that Kazan put in.  Therefore, why shouldn’t Kazan be taken to task for so flippantly using a disturbing setup in the same way that any man would be?

            By the time the film begins to take itself seriously, those not buying into Dano and Kazan’s admittedly sincere efforts will find it all to be too little too late.  Two scenes towards the end provide tantalizing hints at what Ruby Sparks could have been, and the exhilaration of these scenes, particularly a remarkably staged and acted confrontation between Ruby and Calvin, reveals just what was missing throughout the entire film:  confrontation.  Calvin never has anyone to question what he’s doing nor anything to put his cushy lifestyle into jeopardy.  It’s a rookie mistake from a rookie screenwriter, and three years on with no follow-up, it seems like one that’s unlikely to be learned from.

Other Notes:

Ø  Calvin totally would leave his Jonathan Franzen novels laying conspicuously around.

Ø  Dano and Kazan are a real-life couple, and that translates convincingly onscreen.

Ø  Oh, how I hated Calvin’s cliché-ridden parents.

The Longest Ride

Released:  April 10^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  20^th Century Fox

Starring:  Britt Robertson, Scott Eastwood, Jack Huston, Oona Chaplin, Alan Alda

Directed by:  George Tillman Jr.

Written by:  Craig Bolotin

Personal Bias Alert:  not a romance fan, immediately suspicious of anything Nicholas Sparks

4.5 of 10

            Can a name be a genre?  If any can, it’s Nicholas Sparks.  Even the casual moviegoer knows what they’re in for when that name flashes across the screen.  Star-crossed lovers, soft lighting, attractive leads.  They’re fairy-tale romances, the kind where love conquers cancer, dementia, and AIDS (okay, not the last one).  Emotions are encouraged, and there’s a box by the door where your brains should be left behind.  Needless to say, some people love his films and some hate them.  Some, like myself, grew up in a generation where there was always a girl squealing about how many times they’d watched A Walk to Remember or were dragged to The Notebook only to come out ragging about how unrealistic its portrait of dementia was.  That last one’s a true story from my life, so if you’re wondering where I come down on the Sparks spectrum, I firmly hate them.  But even the most begrudging viewer must admit that the Sparks films have hit on a pleasure center that exists in a fair number of people.  There is definitely a clamoring for these stories, and The Longest Ride is an inoffensive way to satisfy the need.

            In this, the tenth Sparks adaptation, the romantic leads are a bull rider and an art student, two people from different worlds whose lives cross for a brief, earth-shattering two months.  Yep, this film supposedly takes place over two months, a period of time that seems impossibly short given how many connections, dramatic turns, and feelings are crammed in.  In fact, there’s a B-plot involving an older man recounting his own marriage that’s nearly as time-consuming and jam-packed as the main storyline.  Yet for all this plot, none of it goes very deep.  Like most Sparks movies, the complications drift around behind the romance, only existing to complicate love instead of giving the characters any real sense of self.  But this is clearly something that the people want, so a reviewer can only shrug their shoulders, dock off a point, and move on, being careful not to dismiss the whole thing simply for being a lightweight.

            The main trio of the bull rider, art student, and dying man, are played by Scott Eastman, Britt Robertson, and Alan Alda, respectively.  Alda, obviously, needs no introductions or assurances that he can handle this material.  Eastman and Robertson were the wildcards going in, each with a decent amount of experience but no roles they can really hang their hat on.  Given their much larger roles on the horizon, The Longest Ride will likely be their forgotten introduction to wider audiences, but it’s still a charming turn for both of them.  They have solid chemistry, perform their modest roles with heartfelt familiarity, and succeed in making this innocuous love story fairly effective.  Compared to Alda’s remembered romance, theirs is downright grounded, and the ease with which Eastman and Robertson sell their romance is almost entirely to thank for it.

            The flashbacks with Alda, which takes place through letter reading (gag me), is the far more saccharine love story, and its combination of too-tall tales of war and dreadful dialogue sinks the whole section before it ever has a chance.  Alda and the actors who portray the young couple are fine.  It’s simply an overwrought story that feels rather unnecessary, and at nearly two and a half hours long, The Longest Ride suffers under the weight of this extra plot.

            And yet, these extra flourishes fit perfectly into the Sparks formula.  The problems keep coming for both couples until the release of tension becomes a necessity.  The emotions these moments engender are as cheap as the jump scares in a churned-out horror flick, but the formula is so smoothly presented here that it all slides by without much offense.  The only remarkable thing about The Longest Ride is its utter blandness, but at least its laziness won’t piss you off.

Other Notes:

Ø  The dialogue is so trite that there were numerous times my brain called word-for-word what the next line would be.  I refrained from saying them out loud only out of respect for my fellow moviegoers.

Ø  Speaking of my fellow moviegoers, I didn’t hear any crying, but people seemed pleased when they left.

Ø  You’d think the cowboy hat would make Eastman look more like his father, Clint, but it was a moment without the hat, when Scott scrunched his face into a scowl, that he most resembled his father.