In 2007, film critic Nathan Rabin coined a term that he would live to regret: Manic Pixie Dream Girl. In his review of Elizabethtown, he described it as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures". Since then, the term has unfortunately been expanded to encompass any quirky woman embracing life instead of shifting focus to the real offenders: female characters that are filler for the plot and whose only purpose is to cheer up one unhappy man. Earlier this year Rabin apologized for his creation, saying he would "welcome its erasure from public discourse". Screenwriter and actress Zoe Kazan agreed wholeheartedly, and in 2012 she made a film to illustrate exactly how she felt about the phrase: Ruby Sparks.
Kazan is not only the writer, she also acts alongside real-life partner Paul Dano in this lighthearted romance. It's set up just as the 2007 version of Nathan Rabin would abhor, starting with a lonely writer named Calvin (Dano). Before the image of Ruby (Kazan) comes to him through a dream, he lacks inspiration in his life and the pages in his typewriter remain blank. He begins to obsess over the fictional girl, until one morning he wakes up to find that his dream girl (literally) has come to life. And Ruby is everything Calvin could have hoped for, and more. She goes swimming at night, dances on the beach, takes her panties off while dancing at a club, and of course, loves giving Calvin blow jobs. What's not to like? Her only flaw is that sometimes she forgets to pay her bills, or something equally saccharine.
The deconstruction begins when Calvin's brother Harry comes over to the house and is told the big secret. "Quirky, messy women whose problems only make them more endearing are not real," he says. Of his own wife, Susie, he says: "I love Susie, but she's a weirdo. Sometimes she's mean as fuck for no reason". Calvin shakes this off in denial, but chooses to stop writing about Ruby. He puts away the paper- from now on, he won't add a single detail about her. Days pass. And Ruby starts to change. She starts to develop traits that come along with real human beings; her originally cute singing now annoys Calvin as he tries to work. Ruby doesn't want sex when Calvin wants it anymore- she's too tired. And now wants to meet his mother, much to his chagrin. But it's only when Ruby starts making friends of her own that Calvin realizes that he could lose the girl of his dreams. He knows that at any point he could pull out those pages, slip them in the typewriter, and change everything, but what happens during the emotional and frightening fever pitch is too great to spoil.
In the end, Ruby Sparks is the perfect film to showcase the cultural poison that is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It cleverly deals with this by literally having a woman manifested from a lonely writer's mind, then showing all the problems that come along with housing a MPDG in the real world. So as I optimistically say goodnight to the toxic trope, I celebrate one of its few killers: the smart writer of it all, Zoe Kazan.
Kazan is not only the writer, she also acts alongside real-life partner Paul Dano in this lighthearted romance. It's set up just as the 2007 version of Nathan Rabin would abhor, starting with a lonely writer named Calvin (Dano). Before the image of Ruby (Kazan) comes to him through a dream, he lacks inspiration in his life and the pages in his typewriter remain blank. He begins to obsess over the fictional girl, until one morning he wakes up to find that his dream girl (literally) has come to life. And Ruby is everything Calvin could have hoped for, and more. She goes swimming at night, dances on the beach, takes her panties off while dancing at a club, and of course, loves giving Calvin blow jobs. What's not to like? Her only flaw is that sometimes she forgets to pay her bills, or something equally saccharine.
The deconstruction begins when Calvin's brother Harry comes over to the house and is told the big secret. "Quirky, messy women whose problems only make them more endearing are not real," he says. Of his own wife, Susie, he says: "I love Susie, but she's a weirdo. Sometimes she's mean as fuck for no reason". Calvin shakes this off in denial, but chooses to stop writing about Ruby. He puts away the paper- from now on, he won't add a single detail about her. Days pass. And Ruby starts to change. She starts to develop traits that come along with real human beings; her originally cute singing now annoys Calvin as he tries to work. Ruby doesn't want sex when Calvin wants it anymore- she's too tired. And now wants to meet his mother, much to his chagrin. But it's only when Ruby starts making friends of her own that Calvin realizes that he could lose the girl of his dreams. He knows that at any point he could pull out those pages, slip them in the typewriter, and change everything, but what happens during the emotional and frightening fever pitch is too great to spoil.
In the end, Ruby Sparks is the perfect film to showcase the cultural poison that is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It cleverly deals with this by literally having a woman manifested from a lonely writer's mind, then showing all the problems that come along with housing a MPDG in the real world. So as I optimistically say goodnight to the toxic trope, I celebrate one of its few killers: the smart writer of it all, Zoe Kazan.