Stranger Than Fiction blends with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in the new metafictional romance Ruby Sparks. Awkward author Calvin (There Will Be Blood's Paul Dano) finds a cure for his writer's block imagining the most manic, pixiest, dreamiest girl possible. Which makes things pretty confusing when she shows up, fully formed as his live-in girlfriend. What follows could be another in a long line of insufferable quirky comedies, but writer and co-star Zoe Kazan undercuts her magical realism with cold, hard reality before taking things down a more sinister path once Calvin starts using his typographical powers to control Ruby's emotions. Alternatively sweet and sour, Ruby Sparks touches upon the psychological implications of artistic creation, but is really about all the fictions we tell ourselves about who we love.
