“Ruby Sparks” is the story of a novelist’s vision who inexplicably comes to life, only to prove far more complicated than even he could have imagined. With a light touch and a dash of magical realism, the first screenplay from actress and playwright Zoe Kazan attracted the attention of Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, the married team who directed the run-away hit “Little Miss Sunshine.” The film takes an unpredictable route into fantasy, identity and the ways we invent love – and how love can re-invent us.
Paul Dano plays Calvin, a celebrated author in his younger years who hasn’t had a follow up novel years after his first breakthrough novel. Struggling with writer’s block, disappointed and unfulfilled, his close relationships are with his dog and his brother. Calvin who is cut off and isolated is constantly being urged by his married brother Harry (Chirs Messina) to get out, live, date and write. Finally finding in his imagination a muse for his novel and with his old typewriter, he creates the perfect girl he named Ruby. Barely done with his first chapter, to his astonishment that his character, Ruby (Zoe Kazan) has magically sprung to life and arrived in his kitchen where she is cooking eggs.
Life changed as Calvin believes that he willed the perfect woman into his life by the sheer power of his imagination. Ruby leaps off the page and into the kitchen of his house, filling it with her warm and joyful personality. Is he hallucinating? Is this a fantasy? Or is the lovely Ruby Sparks a flesh and blood girl: the girl he has been waiting for? Whether real or imaginary the delightful Ruby turns into a muse who helps Calvin rekindle his passion for writing and his passion for life.
Joining the incredibly talented couple Dano (“Little Miss Sunshine,”“There Will Be Blood”) and Kazan (“Revolutionary Road,” “It’s Complicated”) in the movie are Annette Bening who plays Calvin’s free-spirited hippy mother and Antonio Banderas plays her artistic and flamboyant lover.
Find out what will happen to “Ruby Sparks” when it opens September 19 in select theaters from 20th Century Fox (Fox Searchlight Pictures) to be distributed by Warner Bros.
Check out 20th Century Fox’s YouTube https://www.youtube.com/20thcenturyfoxph for the trailer.