The Internet has popularized lot of shorthand for discussing characters in not-very-good TV shows and books. One such bit of shorthand is the "Manic Pixie Dream Girl"—a super-cute and awesome chick, with just enough mental problems to make her accessible to some woebegone boy, who lets our hero know that life is worth living after all. MPDGs do need their mental problems though; if they were not nuts, they would find a better quality of romantic partner, after all.
But what happens when a good writer and, *gulp*, a female writer, comes up with a MPDG, and writes the part for herself! Well, Zoe Kazan (she's Greek you know) is a better writer than her stupid father, if not nearly as good as her brilliant rat grandfather, so Ruby Sparks ends up being pretty good.
It doesn't start so well. We begin with Calvin, Movie Asshole Type #475—The Writer. Guess where he lives? Not Brooklyn, but LA! Guess what's on his desk? YES, A TYPEWRITER. And he's only about fifty years younger than the only LA guy who writes with a typewriter:
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Harlan Ellison IS Uncle Grandma in NOT WITHOUT MY LAWSUIT: THE HARLAN ELLISON STORY!
And guess what Calvin's problem is? I'll give you a hint—it's the only problem writers in movies have. He's blocked. The poor thing. It's been ten years since his first novel, and all he can do is stare at that blank page and talk to his therapist as if for the benefit of third parties who need to catch up on his life (dead father, distant ex-girlfriend, just. can't. write. etc.) Luckily for him, he's still enormously famous. I mean, his agent talks to him. And he put out a novella last year. You know, the movie is a fantasy. The dog ruins his ace first edition of The Catcher in the Rye But he's also been having dreams. Dreams of a girl. A dream girl, you might say...
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Thank God she takes after her mother in the looks department. Hardly any mustache!
And so Calvin writes. And he writes about his dream girl, see. He gives her MPDG standard quirks: she's a painter, she can't drive, she's always DTF. You know. And he takes his little dog for a walk. And then the girl becomes real. And she's a manic pixie type. Eyes like saucers, purple tights, panty shots of various sorts (in the pool, in a drawer, over Calvin's shoulder, in her hands on the dance floor). Calvin stops seeing his shrink because in movies all male anxieties are created by a back-up of unejaculated sperm, but he does confide in his brother, who is a normal person who goes to the gym and has a wife and cooks hamburgers and junk. Calvin loves Ruby Sparks so much he stops writing her.
After a long, odd aside featuring Antonio Banderas in the role of a lifetime and the funniest line in the movie, we're back to LA and goshdarn it if Ruby Sparks doesn't get a little bored with Calvin, who despite being an acclaimed novelist likes stuff like blowjobs and video arcades, like any teen boy. And so he starts to write her again, making more radical changes to her personality. First she's needy, then so giggly and happy she becomes annoying in the opposite direction, and then at a party she almost falls for the come-on of a more mature, less unreasonable novelist. Meanwhile, Calvin runs into his own ex, and they have a little fight in the vestibule. (It's Jessica from True Blood, so I didn't miss anything by going out rather than watching HBO tonight.) PS: Calvin was always a controlling jerk.
Then the movie becomes a horror film for a few long, excruciating, and brilliant moments as Calvin humiliates Ruby with his infinite power over her personality, behavior, and her interactions with the objective world around her. Finally though, he sets her free, as though she never knew him.
Incidentally, this is the point where Olivia thinks the movie should have ended with Ruby coming back and killing Calvin. Indeed, she believes that in the "first draft", Kazan had just this happen, but in the end we had to get a Hollywood ending in order to have the film even be made. Calvin publishes his Ruby Sparks material, and because he has a good agent he gets a fancy hardcover deal for the fantastical concept and not some fucking trade paperback from Tor or whatnot for an $8000 advance and all the girls he can sexually harass at the next science fiction convention in town. And then, walking a dog, he meets a certain dreamy ruby-haired girl who happens to be reading the season's hot new novel.
Her friend lent to her, after telling her it was "pretentious."
Well no, not quite pretentious, but still a little precious. But good. Funny, and dark in its implications, and surely a million times better than its purposefully misleading trailer. Sneaky, Kazan, sneaky!
But what happens when a good writer and, *gulp*, a female writer, comes up with a MPDG, and writes the part for herself! Well, Zoe Kazan (she's Greek you know) is a better writer than her stupid father, if not nearly as good as her brilliant rat grandfather, so Ruby Sparks ends up being pretty good.
It doesn't start so well. We begin with Calvin, Movie Asshole Type #475—The Writer. Guess where he lives? Not Brooklyn, but LA! Guess what's on his desk? YES, A TYPEWRITER. And he's only about fifty years younger than the only LA guy who writes with a typewriter:
Harlan Ellison IS Uncle Grandma in NOT WITHOUT MY LAWSUIT: THE HARLAN ELLISON STORY!
And guess what Calvin's problem is? I'll give you a hint—it's the only problem writers in movies have. He's blocked. The poor thing. It's been ten years since his first novel, and all he can do is stare at that blank page and talk to his therapist as if for the benefit of third parties who need to catch up on his life (dead father, distant ex-girlfriend, just. can't. write. etc.) Luckily for him, he's still enormously famous. I mean, his agent talks to him. And he put out a novella last year. You know, the movie is a fantasy. The dog ruins his ace first edition of The Catcher in the Rye But he's also been having dreams. Dreams of a girl. A dream girl, you might say...
Thank God she takes after her mother in the looks department. Hardly any mustache!
And so Calvin writes. And he writes about his dream girl, see. He gives her MPDG standard quirks: she's a painter, she can't drive, she's always DTF. You know. And he takes his little dog for a walk. And then the girl becomes real. And she's a manic pixie type. Eyes like saucers, purple tights, panty shots of various sorts (in the pool, in a drawer, over Calvin's shoulder, in her hands on the dance floor). Calvin stops seeing his shrink because in movies all male anxieties are created by a back-up of unejaculated sperm, but he does confide in his brother, who is a normal person who goes to the gym and has a wife and cooks hamburgers and junk. Calvin loves Ruby Sparks so much he stops writing her.
After a long, odd aside featuring Antonio Banderas in the role of a lifetime and the funniest line in the movie, we're back to LA and goshdarn it if Ruby Sparks doesn't get a little bored with Calvin, who despite being an acclaimed novelist likes stuff like blowjobs and video arcades, like any teen boy. And so he starts to write her again, making more radical changes to her personality. First she's needy, then so giggly and happy she becomes annoying in the opposite direction, and then at a party she almost falls for the come-on of a more mature, less unreasonable novelist. Meanwhile, Calvin runs into his own ex, and they have a little fight in the vestibule. (It's Jessica from True Blood, so I didn't miss anything by going out rather than watching HBO tonight.) PS: Calvin was always a controlling jerk.
Then the movie becomes a horror film for a few long, excruciating, and brilliant moments as Calvin humiliates Ruby with his infinite power over her personality, behavior, and her interactions with the objective world around her. Finally though, he sets her free, as though she never knew him.
Incidentally, this is the point where Olivia thinks the movie should have ended with Ruby coming back and killing Calvin. Indeed, she believes that in the "first draft", Kazan had just this happen, but in the end we had to get a Hollywood ending in order to have the film even be made. Calvin publishes his Ruby Sparks material, and because he has a good agent he gets a fancy hardcover deal for the fantastical concept and not some fucking trade paperback from Tor or whatnot for an $8000 advance and all the girls he can sexually harass at the next science fiction convention in town. And then, walking a dog, he meets a certain dreamy ruby-haired girl who happens to be reading the season's hot new novel.
Her friend lent to her, after telling her it was "pretentious."
Well no, not quite pretentious, but still a little precious. But good. Funny, and dark in its implications, and surely a million times better than its purposefully misleading trailer. Sneaky, Kazan, sneaky!