It's not uncommon for struggling actors to write a screenplay giving themselves a plum role, but the results are rarely as successful as this startlingly assured first feature script by actress Zoe Kazan, brought winningly to life by the directors of Little Miss Sunshine. It’s as though ’70s-era Woody Allen wrote a feature-length adap of The Twilight Zone episode A World Of His Own.
Although Paul Dano is few people’s idea of a romantic lead, he is well cast as Calvin, a neurotic intellectual who topped the New York Times bestseller list at the age of 19, and has been struggling with the literary equivalent of Difficult Second Album Syndrome ever since. Given a therapeutic writing task by his analyst (Elliott Gould), Calvin writes about a girl he has dreamed of meeting, only to find her living in his apartment, calling herself his girlfriend and inviting him to all-night zombie-movie marathons.
After a highly enjoyable bit of business, in which Calvin and his brother (Chris Messina) attempt to find out whether this figment of his imagination is really real, Calvin introduces Ruby to the other people in his life: his agent (a particularly louche Steve Coogan), his hippy mom (Annette Bening) and sculptor stepdad (Antonio Banderas). At this point, the film slides smoothly into more familiar rom-com territory, albeit loaded with metaphor about our constant need to modify the people we fall in love with.
Happily Ruby Sparks has a pay-off worthy of its set-up, even if it wraps up a little too neatly — and sweetly. It’s a pity, too, that when the story takes a turn for the twisted, Kazan pulls her punches, coyly loading the premise’s darker possibilities into a single scene. Such choices, however, can only enhance the commercial prospects of what may just be the sharpest and funniest indie romance since (500) Days Of Summer.
