Simon Dillon reviews the offbeat romantic comedy

This is the second film in as many weeks I have seen about a writer struggling with "that difficult second novel" after an earlier bestseller. Obviously a romantic comedy like Ruby Sparks is a very different proposition to Sinister, but both central characters share a certain narcissism, and actually there is something horrific about the premise here as well - namely an author who causes a woman to be physically manifest by writing about her.

Obviously, for the most part this premise is played for laughs. When Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) first imagines Ruby (Zoe Kazan) only to find her in his house, he initially thinks he is going mad. But when he discovers everyone else can see her too, they embark on a relationship. The problem is, after a while certain aspects of this "perfect woman" begin to irritate him, so he tries to "rewrite" her - only to find in doing so he loses what he liked about her in the first place. Again, this is played for laughs at first, but the "rewriting" culminates in a somewhat disturbing, borderline frightening sequence which I won't spoil here.

Ruby Sparks has a serious point to be made about relationships, and the futility of either party trying to "change" the other. There is also an interesting play on the idea of "acting" in a relationship. Ruby "acts" in the way written by Calvin, but the results are not what he expects, and in the end one is reminded of the scene in Bruce Almighty when Jim Carrey asks God how he can make someone love him without interfering in free will, to which God replies "if you can figure that one out, let me know". There are echoes of other comedies here too - especially Stranger than Fiction, Weird Science and a dash of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (particularly in the finale, which incidentally doesn't quite add up).

Writer Zoe Kazan (who also plays the eponymous Ruby) and directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have crafted an enjoyably offbeat tale here, and their cast do very well too - not just the leads, but also appealing bit parts from the likes of Steve Coogan, Elliott Gould, Annette Benning and Antonio Banderas. All things considered it's a good film, albeit one where the usual warnings about swearing and sexual content should be applied.

However, my sympathy for struggling writers is now wearing a little thin (which is saying something, as I am one myself - at least Calvin had a smash hit prior to his writer's block!). Next week I will endeavor to watch something about, say, a struggling child mad scientist instead.