10. Ruby Sparks

Now this is a quirky story I can get behind.  Ruby Sparks is about a writer, Calvin (Paul Dano), who is suffering from writers block.  He wrote one of the greatest novels in our generation when he was just 19 years old and since has written nothing.  His therapist (Elliott Gould) assigns him a therapeutic task of writing about his dog, Scottie, because Calvin feels no one loves Scottie.  After falling asleep on the couch and dreaming about a girl, Calvin is filled with inspiration.  He stays up all night writing about this girl, admitting to his therapist that he think he is writing so much because he looks forward to getting to know all this girl he named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan).  Soon he starts to notice a few oddities around his house (women's underwear, ladies razor, etc).  Then one day she appears in his kitchen.  Thinking that he has finally gone off the rocker, Calvin freaks out.  His brother gives him the advice to get out of the house and be around real people, but since Calvin has no friends he calls a girl, Mabel (Alia Shawkat), who is only interested in sleeping with him.  While out with Mabel, Ruby spots him and, Calvin's surprise, Mabel can see her too.  When he realizes that he isn't dreaming and Ruby is really standing in front of him, he gets caught up in a whirlwind romance and stops writing about her.  But soon the character starts to develop a life of her own.  One that Calvin isn't the biggest fan of.  Fearing that Ruby will leave him, he takes out his magic type writer, and writes about how miserable Ruby is without him.  Instantly she is drawn to him and never wants to leave his side.  But this just causes more problems.  The more Calvin tries to mold her into his dream girl, the more problems he has. 

I loved the beginning of this film.  The story drew me in from the beginning and I was right there with him wondering if Calvin really was crazy or if it was magic.  Paul Dano did an outstanding job portraying the neurotic self obsessed writer (he kind of reminded me of a mix between Woody Allen and Stephen King, if such a thing exists).  And their falling in love montage shot and edited beautifully.  A good soundtrack always help in that instance too.  However (and this may be because I'm a girl), once he started trying to change her is when he movie started to annoy me.  The character I once was routing for was now driving me crazy.  I couldn't wait for her to leave his ass.  What a butt head.  But, I think that is my only real complaint with the film. 

Rating:  ****

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4RJYlSgDKM