Ruby Sparks - Tartly Sweet Romance

**** out of *****

Running time: 104 minutes

MPAA rating: R for language including some sexual references, and for some drug use.

Ruby Sparks is a funny, tartly sweet romance with an intelligent script, top-notch performances and a nodding acquaintance with absurdist fantasy.

Written by and starring Zoe Kazan, the granddaughter of screen legend Elia Kazan (director of the screen classics On the Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire and East of Eden), the picture utilizes the plot device of an artist creating an imaginary person and finding her coming to life.

Here the central character is stalled writer Paul Dano, boy wonder who, at age 19, had a huge success with his first novel but who hasn’t managed another since. He’s rich, living off the huge profits his classic continues to generate, but he has no friends, no apparent interests and only a brother (Chris Messina) and a psychiatrist (Elliot Gould) with whom he can share his anxiety-laden, depressed existence.

At his wit’s end, he begins having dreams of the perfect woman. Soon, he finds himself obsessively rushing to transcribe his fantasy life onto the page as he rediscovers his voice. He’s elated, thrilled, even happy. Then, to his surprise, the dream woman materializes in his kitchen. She doesn’t just show up, either. She appears fully realized as his established girlfriend, with all the attributes he has invented, plus some of her own personality traits which begin bubbling to the surface.

The film's heretofore staid character study of a tormented writer quickly transforms itself into a comical, sometimes romantic, always whimsical parable of wish fulfillment gone awry.

Directed by the team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, whose previous bit of whimsy, Little Miss Sunshine, garnered a best picture Oscar nomination in 2007, Ruby Sparks triumphantly blends the pathos of loneliness, the miracle of attraction, the joy of finding one's soul mate and the fear of losing her into one of the year's most complex pictures.

The fine cast is led by Dano and Kazan (a real-life off-screen couple), and supported by the aforementioned Messina and Gould plus Annette Benning and a zany Antonio Banderas as the hero's mother and stepfather. As we enter the awards season, this picture is sure to garner numerous nominations in the indie and Oscar races. It's a mature and nuanced film, and one of the year's best.