On the Writer and Ruby Sparks

Is writing the least glamorous glamorous job that one can hold? You may walk red carpets, mingle with celebrities, travel round the world and earn money to make life a comfortable experience, but in many cases remain anonymous. Without your work the finished product doesn’t exist, yet once it does and it is out there, an audience unfamiliar and uninterested unconsciously casts you aside with your methods, as do a press concerned only with the ‘names’ of entertainment.

Ruby Sparks concerns itself with a rare creature, the novelist who has achieved recognisable fame.  Fame he doesn’t necessarily crave. Yet, he is still portrayed as we expect writers to be portrayed; an indoors type, lonely, bookish (obviously) and out of place in a gym. Despite this stereotypical presentation, Ruby Sparks is mostly about writing, the pleasures, the difficulties and the dreams of writers. When we meet the film’s protagonist he is writing using a typewriter, despite this being the 21^st Century; he is anachronistic. Not just in his equipment, but also in his approach to love, believing in the magic of romance (a magic that becomes literal).

As the film progresses, his love of writing and of what his writing manifests reveals its true nature, its difficulties and complications. He writes less and when he does it is not for love of writing, but for a need to control his writing from spiralling out of his control. By the end of the film, he has come to learn that the magic of writing and of love does not exist in a romantic ideal somewhere located in the past, but exists in the present where it requires work and constant attention. He swaps his typewriter for a MacBook Pro and writes his next great novel. 

On Safe Comedy with Liberal Arts

It’s easy to think that a young, hipster looking writer/director like Josh Radnor would, when tackling the romantic comedy genre, produce something off beat or indy-esque. You would not be at fault for thinking this; he stars in a popular E4 comedy, How I Met Your Mother (2005 -) and his first film as writer/director was perfectly titled to connote eccentric cinematic sensibilities, Happythankyoumoreplease (2010). His new film, which he wrote, directed and stars in is Liberal Arts and tells the story of a graduate of a top university finding himself, twenty years later, back on campus and falling for a freshman.

However, Liberal Arts is, beneath the liberal, arty title, a very traditional romantic comedy. There is the mismatched romantic pairing, the wiser, foreshadowing older mentor, the off beat side-kick and a style of comedy which falls very much under the family friendly, don’t offend the elderly banner.

All of this feels very nice and fresh within the continuing onslaught of comedy inspired by the Judd Apatow lewd, bromance genre. Liberal Arts is funny and is touching and is able to reach out to a wide audience and make itself relevant and relatable. The performances, like the direction aren’t flashy, but display the restraint of a director confident of his vision. A film that is memorable for being unremarkable.