Some movies are like questionable miracles, meaning you have to give them the benefit of the doubt or they don't work. I wish I could believe charming Ruby Sparks, but it's just a mite too full of itself.
This flick wears pretentiousness on its sleeve, right next to its heart.
Dano portrays a famous author clumsily named Calvin Weir-Fields. For no reason, he works on an old-fashioned typewriter. He also suffers writers block in all the cliché ways. Then he scripts the perfect girlfriend (Kazan, who also wrote the script), and one dayâ┚¬â€Âit's a miracleâ┚¬â€Âquirky-girl Ruby shows up. Dano soon finds he can control everything about her via his writing.
It's never happened before, except in Weird Science in 1985.
There's a pretty obvious underpinning of feminism here. Kazan spins the old yarn about straight men trying to manipulate their perfect women, instead of setting them free like the butterflies women are. It gets a little heavy-handed, as in Bening's hippie dippy mother characterâ┚¬â€Âwho once herself broke free of the fetters of an Alpha male, and who has apparently had little to no positive influence on her sons.
It's easy to spot that fellow writer Coogan is going to be evil. What's more difficult to swallow is that Dano and Messina are brothers, despite their obvious rapport. In fact, that casting is the only really surprising thing in this affable but heavy-handed, lecture-riddled romance.
Red Lights is an interesting failure, with a black-hole logic gap so gargantuan, it's a wonder the film ever got made. The challenge is how to describe why this is terrible stuff without destroying the purported plot twist, because the subject is probably something that audiences are clamoring for.
Weaver and Murphy are doctors in an underfunded university department. They investigate paranormal activity for hoaxes and charlatans. They both have their reasons for uncovering frauds, and they're good at what they do. However, when megastar, blind psychic DeNiro comes out of a 30-year retirement, Murphy wants to take him on while Weaver inexplicably shies away.
The cast list is impressive, and the filming is slick. Director/writer/editor Roberto Cortes attracted great talentâ┚¬â€Âand a few million in production moneyâ┚¬â€Âdespite the fact that, at the end, the movie makes no sense whatsoever.It's a cool concept, fatally executed. The trick is how I can explain this to audiences without ruining it for an audience who I think deserves better.
Let's try this: if you spent a whole film watching someone try to boil water, and then the end reveals he is a four-star chef, you'd be pissed. Another example: if a pianist can play the Rach 3 (which is insanely difficult), then playing Chopsticks shouldn't be a problem. Do intelligent actors and experienced producers have a blind spot for massive plot holes that should've been spotted before the first camera was turned on?
What this Disney flick lacks in subtlety, it makes up for in cloying, diabetes-inducing sweetness. My friend who saw this with me said that the film's saccharine approach doesn't just smack you over the head, it drags you into a dark corner, beats the hell out of you, and then rifles through your pockets for extra sugar packets.
Edgerton and Garner are a small-town couple who've longed for a child. When the medical report comes back that they can never succeed, they mourn. Their grief takes a special tact. They write down attributes of their perfect child and then bury these papers in Garner's beloved garden. That night a miracle occurs and the garden sprouts Timothy (Adams). He's a small boy with leaves growing out of his ankles, and he's come to teach his ersatz parents some skills.
Who's this film for? If it's for parents, why do the dialogue and plot sound like they were written for a kindergarten play? If it's for kids, why are the parents the protagonists? If this is a magical allegory, why is the art direction so realistically dull and the pace so slow?
Garner is pretty wooden, and the plot is also fairly stiff. Adams plays one note: precocious. Edgerton tries to inject some nuance, but he's fighting a dying battle. Sure, some visual moments still work, but the overall, syrupy experience is about as exciting as watching grass grow.
