Ruby Sparks (2012)

The Greek legend of Pygmalion tells of a sculptor who was so skilled that his statues looked lifelike. A blessing from the goddess Aphrodite brought the statue to life, and the sculptor married her and lived happily ever after.
The play “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw premiered in 1913, and was brought to the silver screen in 1963 with the title “My Fair Lady” starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison. While neither the play nor movie involved a statue-turned-human, they did focus around a man who took a woman (in this case from a drastically different social class) and transformed her into their “ideal.”
Even more modern takes on the concept - including an episode of Disney’s “Hercules” tv show that I saw as a kid - add a twist: the “creator” realizes that the ideal woman they have in their head isn’t actually ideal at all. They think they want someone obsessed with them, or who can’t live without them. Those creators ultimately realize that a) they can’t find the happy balance they want with their creation, and b) their creations are living, sentient beings, and keeping them in a gilded cage isn’t love, so the creations are released to live their own lives.

With that exposition out of the way, I’m sure you can guess where “Ruby Sparks” (2012) went.

Calvin (Paul Dano) was a listless had-been writer. He’d dropped out of high school, wrote a best-selling novel, made millions, and never actually grew up. Not only did he not grow up, but he was pathologically incapable of moving forward too, relying on a typewriter for his work, refusing to accept his mother’s happiness with her new husband, or even properly acknowledging that his last relationship failed due to his gaping emotional immaturity.
After a particularly vivid dream about the ‘perfect’ woman, Ruby (Zoe Kazan), Calvin wrote about her to try to fix his writers block. Inexplicably, she popped into existence, fully formed, with the same backstory he’d typed out.
Understandably, Calvin thought he was going mad, but as other people could see and hear her, he realized that somehow, she just was.
As a test to see if Ruby was truly his creation, and not just some crazy person who’d gotten ahold of his manuscript, Calvin typed out a few lines of text, narrating that Ruby could speak perfect French. Her dialogue immediately changed languages and he realized he had 100% narrative control over her.
You can see where this is going.

While the storyline of “Ruby Sparks” generally followed the Pygmalion beats, the character arc worth following was actually Calvin’s - it was fascinating watching him develop from a glorified man-child into someone who realized he was responsible for his own actions and needed to stop living in his own little bubble if he was ever going to get to enjoy life.
Dano and Kazan filled out their character roles magnificently.
While I didn’t particularly like Calvin, it was because Dano’s portrayal of a barely-functional man-child was on point; he absolutely nailed it.
Meanwhile, Kazan wore every emotion on her sleeve, perfectly fitting whatever stumbling, misguided re-write of Ruby’s personality that Calvin committed to paper to make her “better.”
And together, Dano and Kazan had glorious chemistry. They were so good around each other, and their characters, and the settings and the plot and everything else. It felt like the movie was written explicitly for those two to take the lead roles, instead of a script written with casting calls.

As for the script itself: I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was somehow the life-story of one of the executive producers. Obviously no one spontaneously created life from the ether, but Calvin’s growth arc felt nuanced in such a way that it must have mimicked someone’s experiences, as opposed to just a bunch of writers developing the protagonist for a script.

The soundtrack for this was amazing. The musical choices fit each scene flawlessly.
At two points, French pop music played. While I’m not a fan of French music in general, it worked and didn’t feel misplaced or weird.
Like everything else, it just worked.

The one thing I will highlight:
When Ruby appeared, so did her backstory. Somehow she had an apartment, and clothes. Which meant that she had a job. Which meant that somewhere, somehow, 20+ years of reality cracked open and rended unto us a retroactively created history for one woman. That meant there was suddenly a school with a yearbook with her picture in it, and classmates she could call up, and bosses who knew her; none of whom had any reason to think of her in the hours and years leading up to Calvin typing out the words of Ruby’s creation.
Now: that’s not a negative nitpick. There’s no possible way this movie could have functioned if they tried to explain Ruby’s personal history.
So they did was science-fiction does best: they ignored the problem entirely for the sake of telling a story.

This was an outstanding display of character writing, development, and portrayal and I’m glad I took an evening to watch it from the comfort of my couch.
That said: I watched it from the comfort of my couch, and I’m glad I did.
While I had many great things to say about this, I don’t think I would have been happy to see it in theaters, either in 2012 or 2020. It’s not a movie I would have been happy to pay for cinema tickets to - even at matinee pricing - but the minor cost of a rental from your favorite service was perfect.
Grab some wine and popcorn and your loved one and view it as a rental - you won’t regret it.