Alternate Best Actor 2012: Paul Dano in Ruby Sparks

Paul Dano did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Calvin Weir-Fields in Ruby Sparks. 

Ruby Sparks falls into another film where my tendency not to pre-read synopsis strikes again, as just a glance at the poster, I thought it was your typical two quirky people meet Indie film, but instead it's about a writer inventing said dream quirky woman. 

Paul Dano plays the writer, and it is rare that Dano isn't playing a character with some degree of neurosis. So he seems fitting enough in this role as he just brings that type of energy. A bit different here though is that Dano's character isn't suffering some truly extreme psychological insanity, he's rather a writer suffering writer's block is a bit too isolated. Dano though is effective in playing this lighter note, in again bringing that expected energy of someone always just slightly on edge with his emotions, and never quite seemingly comfortable within himself. Dano's work is a nice modulation of his expected presence here in playing the slight riff to this kind of character. He has an ease at unease, and manages to make it less heavy than usual in a way that does make Calvin likable, enough, when it would've been easy to be too much with his eccentricity, or just too little to the point of blandness. Dano hits the right balance in giving us the starting point of his romantic lead, which is a bit more straightforward than many Dano roles, but also properly distinguishes himself as a somewhat atypical romantic lead, if still very much within that kind of genre. 

Eventually the turn to establish the film's intention comes in when he becomes inspired to write about a woman meeting his dog, who has all her own little bit of written business. Where we first meet his creation of Ruby (Zoe Kazan), who comes on strong in about every regard as the pseudo dream woman. And here you see the chemistry between Dano and Kazan, which is considerable between the two, and being real life partners actually is not a guarantee of onscreen chemistry however in this case the two have it in spades. And what I think works the most in terms of that is actually what it changes in Dano in their interactions, which when truly romantic with one another, Dano's neurosis becomes more limited. There's a greater ease to Dano's performance and it comes together to create the sense of connection between the two by the way we see his Calvin suddenly become more comfortable in general. Of course things get complicated when the real supernatural turn comes, as not only does he create the character in his mind Ruby comes to life in reality, where everyone can see her. This is where the film switches more than a bit to absurdity though played with a certain sensibility of someone trying to deal with the unbelievable with some kind of reality. 

We get this phase of the film where Dano gets to briefly play the note of the comedic surprise of the situation, particularly when he is interacting with his brother (Chris Messina, who is playing the "best friend" romcom trope to quite the extreme himself). And we get a bit of well tuned mania in his performance that works in just conveying the mix of surprise, disbelief but also a kind of wonder as he discovers his invented woman in reality. Then the film hits, for me, its snag as it doesn't quite know fully where to go with the idea, as we enter the relationship going into the doldrums as he goes to visit his eccentric mom and eccentric boyfriend, and she becomes less dependent on him. All of this is all okay, but not quite as remarkable as it seemingly could be. Dano himself has to go through the motions a bit, particularly in the parents scene of being just slightly annoyed. Then as Ruby becomes more independent, his frustrations are also portrayed convincingly, particularly the darker streak as we see him become jealous and truly unable to deal with her behaviors. And the film quickly though runs him to the extreme of continuing to write and change her, to giving her up all in one long sequence. One long sequence which in terms of Dano's emotions he does effectively portray the shifting frustration, to fear, to mania, to a kind of sad contentment, but I would be wrong to say that it doesn't feel a touch rushed. And the move to Calvin becoming enlightened, isn't something that I think the film entirely earns, though Dano gives his best efforts to be sure. And this is a good performance from Paul Dano, however one that I don't think quite carries the impact of his best work. But as a mostly lighter fair, it is largely effective work albeit a bit held back by the certain limitations of the film.