Best Film Ever

Episode 311 - Ruby Sparks

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“I wrote you.”

Join Ian & Liam for our 312th episode as we step into the strange, tender, and quietly unsettling world of Ruby Sparks (2012) — a film about creativity, control, fantasy, and what happens when the person you imagine refuses to stay that way. Typewriters ready. Boundaries optional.

This week we discuss:

  • The central conceit — what happens when your idealised version of someone becomes real, and whether the film earns the right to ask that question.
  • Paul Dano’s performance — wounded, awkward, gifted, and quietly terrifying. Is Calvin a romantic lead… or a cautionary tale?
  • Zoe Kazan’s Ruby — luminous, frustrating, independent, and increasingly human. How does the film balance charm with agency?
  • The ethics of authorship (first level) — when creativity crosses into control, and when love turns into manipulation. 
  • The ethics of authorship (second level)- What about the ethics of Zoe Kazan's screenplay and performance opposite her actual romantic partner in Paul Dano
  • Our own Ruby Sparks asks whether the film understands its own power dynamics — or if it occasionally romanticises behaviour it should interrogate harder.
  • The meta-text — a film written by its female lead about being written by a man. How much does that context change everything?
  • We talk about fantasy vs. reality in relationships — and how dangerous it is to fall in love with someone who exists only on your terms.
  • Is Calvin a hard lead to sympathise with on any level?  Does his status as financially successful cause him to be less easy to support?
  • There are… hypotheticals discussed — moments that feel uncomfortably specific, strangely timed, or oddly familiar, without ever being about anything in particular. Pure coincidence, obviously.
  • We talk about whether this is strictly a male-female perspective or if it's something innately more comprehensively human than that
  • The tonal shift — rom-com whimsy giving way to something much darker. Does the film stick the landing?
  • The ending — hopeful, troubling, cyclical? What does the final image actually suggest?  Ian presents what he thinks is the author's intent
  • And finally, whether Ruby Sparks is the Best Film Ever — or one of the most quietly confronting relationship films of the 2010s.

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