RUBY SPARKS is sensitive at every turn, and captures a sort of emotional truth about the nature of identity and even its link to existence itself. Ruby Sparks is a young woman with certain traits, qualities and a rough biography who is invented by an author struggling to equal the success of his bestselling first book. Somehow or another, she makes the leap from literary subsistence to material existence as the actual girlfriend of the writer.

These are not new themes. Ruby, who is in another twist a part both written and played by Zoe Kazan, is the literary equivalent of the androids and virtual beings of science fiction. The Will Ferrell vehicle Stranger Than Fiction  explored a similar literary conceit some years ago.

RUBY SPARKS is, however, touching and affectionate in a way that most of its precursors did not try to be, partly because its priority is to find a humane way out of the maze that neither relegates Ruby to the world of imaginary beings nor requires her to suffer the certain knowledge that she can never be her own person in the world that, perhaps a little too confidently, we call the real one.

Check listings for viewing options.