Speaker 1: On the Bechdecast. The questions asked if movies have.
Speaker 2: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 2: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, f and
Speaker 2: bast start changing it with the Bechdel cast.
Speaker 1: Hey Jamie, Hey Caitlyn, I have a secret what. I
Speaker 1: wrote a story about a character named Jamie Loftus, and
Speaker 1: then we were like hosting a podcast together in my story.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly.
Speaker 3: Bur Bonour, wow you're feel Wait Jesse, can you see Jamie?
Speaker 3: Oh wow your homage?
Speaker 1: She shut them Kitleen, Oh shit them you too, bark
Speaker 1: bark anyway.
Speaker 3: Hi. Wow. I panics because I was like, I know
Speaker 3: the bit I want to do, but I don't have
Speaker 3: the skills. I can't. I'm ill equipped, but I wrote
Speaker 3: and fringe we.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Hi, this is the Bechdel Test. My name is
Speaker 1: Caitlin Dorante, my.
Speaker 3: Name is Jamie Loftus, and I'm controlled by Caitlyn Dorante.
Speaker 1: Mmm, sorry about it.
Speaker 3: I frequently find that everything in my life changes. I
Speaker 3: have friends, I lose them. I'm on all fours, barking
Speaker 3: like a dog. I'm calling Caitlyn a genius non stop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: It's honestly kind of an incredible way to live. You know,
Speaker 3: the surrender of free will has its drawbacks, but you
Speaker 3: know she does let me go to sleep. Sometimes You're welcome.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You're a genius, yes, I know. Anyway, this is our
Speaker 1: show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point.
Speaker 1: But Jamie, my creation, what is it?
Speaker 3: Well? The Bechdel Test is a media metric created originally
Speaker 3: by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
Speaker 3: A lot of versions of the test. The version we
Speaker 3: use is this one. We require that there be two
Speaker 3: characters of a marginalized gender with names talking to each
Speaker 3: other about something other than a man for more than
Speaker 3: two lines of dialogue in some sort of meaningful way.
Speaker 3: Can't really be more specific than that you know it
Speaker 3: when you see it. So those are sort of our requirements. God,
Speaker 3: this is like such an interesting movie to talk about
Speaker 3: in regards to the Bechdel Test, because I feel like
Speaker 3: this movie came out in a stretch of time where
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Test was also frequently discussed, often in a
Speaker 3: way that I feel like it is no longer discussed
Speaker 3: now in a good way. I'm excited to talk about
Speaker 3: this movie same And we have a returning guest.
Speaker 1: We sure do. Our guest is the senior editor at Vulture.
Speaker 1: He's the host of Good One podcast, and his book,
Speaker 1: entitled comedy Book Boom, is out on November seventh. It's
Speaker 1: Jesse David Fox.
Speaker 3: Welcome back. Hello.
Speaker 4: I was trying to think it if I know any
Speaker 4: words in French, and I don't. That's the word.
Speaker 3: And a happy bonjor to you and happy book. Congratulations
Speaker 3: on the book.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you so much. Congratulations on your book.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I was baiting you.
Speaker 1: I made Jamie write that book. Isn't that a congratulation.
Speaker 4: You wrote every word for her to sit down to.
Speaker 1: Type to rewrite. Yes, You're welcome again.
Speaker 3: Mister Haitlin did not want to eat a hot dog,
Speaker 3: and so they went really like four dy chest to
Speaker 3: find a way to get the book written. Welcome back.
Speaker 3: I realized as we were preparing for this episode, because
Speaker 3: we're covering Ruby Sparks twenty twelve, that on your first
Speaker 3: episode we also kind of did not a similar plot,
Speaker 3: but we did her with you years and years ago,
Speaker 3: and it's yet another movie about a.
Speaker 4: Man that a writer creating a contra that he can
Speaker 4: control as a way of getting over an ex girlfriend
Speaker 4: that also was a failure because he tried to control
Speaker 4: that relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Like he's the sort of guy I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess that they're still out there. I've met them.
Speaker 3: They're still around. They're kind of an unkillable mutant species.
Speaker 3: But it is interesting that these two movies. Yeah, they're
Speaker 3: a guy that's like, I couldn't be a bad person.
Speaker 3: I'm shy you.
Speaker 4: It was the cultural zenith of that guy as hero
Speaker 4: that's shorthand for somewhat redeemable because it's this type of guy. Now,
Speaker 4: this movie, I think, not to get ahead of it,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to remember if this watching this movie helped
Speaker 4: me get over that part of myself that also thought
Speaker 4: that about like me that was like, well, I'm quiet,
Speaker 4: so I guess I'm nice. Or did this movie reinforce
Speaker 4: that feeling in me.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited to talk to you about that because
Speaker 3: this movie is now eleven years old, and it's like
Speaker 3: we would have covered this movie very differently when this
Speaker 3: show started seven years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, and by.
Speaker 3: Differently, I mean worse because you grow in all that stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to talk about this movie. I was
Speaker 3: pleasantly surprised by how much it broke my brain. But Jesse,
Speaker 3: what is your history with this film?
Speaker 4: I didn't see it in theaters, but I do believe
Speaker 4: I saw it soon after, but I can't totally remember when.
Speaker 4: But I do feel like this type of movie like Fox, Searchlight,
Speaker 4: rom Com Adjacent or whatever, was like my favorite type
Speaker 4: of movie, like Zoe Cazant's starring.
Speaker 3: Movies directors of Little Miss Sunshine. You're like, yes, I'm listening.
Speaker 3: I'm listening.
Speaker 4: Yes, all of this was like exactly my aesthetics. So
Speaker 4: I know I saw it. I assume like once it
Speaker 4: was on was streaming around that. I don't know how
Speaker 4: I saw it, but I know I saw it and then.
Speaker 1: On demand or something disgusting.
Speaker 4: And then I was like, I had a memory of
Speaker 4: this discourse around this and Zoe's sort of relationship to
Speaker 4: the termatic Pixie dream Girl. I remember reading an interview
Speaker 4: she said X and then I realized, oh, that was
Speaker 4: that interview I did with her where I asked her
Speaker 4: about like, now, how she feels because the creator of
Speaker 4: the termatic Pixie dream Girl regretted it, and then she
Speaker 4: was sort of the champion of how maybe the term,
Speaker 4: unlike the Bechdel test, was sort of like sloppily applied
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that's like I totally agree. I mean, you
Speaker 3: can't tell someone how to, you know, deal with their
Speaker 3: own word that they made popular, and like Nathan Raven
Speaker 3: is amazing, But it did feel like retracting it entirely
Speaker 3: was an overcorrection. It was just like, no, it's a thing,
Speaker 3: but just like not in every single case that someone
Speaker 3: says it is right, yes, right.
Speaker 4: It became a way to fairly quickly disregard female performances
Speaker 4: and female characters so much so then if you then reject,
Speaker 4: you're like, well then are we Then we forgot The
Speaker 4: first point was to criticize a type of female character
Speaker 4: that this movie also was trying to criticize exactly. And
Speaker 4: then now we're back to partly the aesthetics of this
Speaker 4: character doesn't exist in the same way anymore, because like
Speaker 4: it was so associated with like certain types of haircuts
Speaker 4: and clothes.
Speaker 3: My minit right, she's got the bangs, she's got the
Speaker 3: little cap sleeve dresses and you're like, yep, yep, we
Speaker 3: were there, we saw it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So because for your people have bangs, I don't know,
Speaker 4: like I don't know gen Z's relationship to this idea. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it seems like it, if anything, it has like
Speaker 4: it's right for a resurgence, right. It is like not
Speaker 4: so removed from like girl Dinner or whatever.
Speaker 3: Right. I think that this can like exist in conversation
Speaker 3: with I don't know what, like whatever every generation things
Speaker 3: that they've solved things and reinvented the wheel, and they
Speaker 3: never have and they never will. And that's just sort
Speaker 3: of my view on the state of things. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like gen Z has their version of these too.
Speaker 3: That will also be embarrassing to look back on ten
Speaker 3: years from now. I was thinking of Girl Dinner, Girl
Speaker 3: Math Girl, which is like something that I've sort of
Speaker 3: let fly at different points as well. When there's that
Speaker 3: Christmas in a line of like you haven't written a woman,
Speaker 3: You've written a girl, And I'm like, and what do
Speaker 3: you mean by what you know?
Speaker 1: What are you saying?
Speaker 4: What side do you then take by saying that I
Speaker 4: am Switzerland.
Speaker 3: I think let the girls do what they want. Let
Speaker 3: the girls do what they want.
Speaker 1: That character makes some like very good points, and then
Speaker 1: he makes some very bad points throughout the movie. He's
Speaker 1: very inconsistent.
Speaker 3: I mean, but that's kind of what I appreciated about him.
Speaker 3: I'm like, that seems like a guy that exists in
Speaker 3: the world where he's like, I love my wife so much,
Speaker 3: but I would change her if I could.
Speaker 4: And you're like, yeah, he is a similar you know,
Speaker 4: insomuch as this movie's in conversation with like five hundred
Speaker 4: Days of Summer. He like is very much in the
Speaker 4: same ilk as like the DOOTI Er the more do
Speaker 4: characters of that movie. Yeah, he was like this version
Speaker 4: in that movie. They're both browier than the lead, but
Speaker 4: also like the conscience of the movie because in that
Speaker 4: movie is like I would give my wife bigger tits
Speaker 4: if I could, but in retrospect it wouldn't change anything, right.
Speaker 3: But I love that broad Yeah, the chad conscience of
Speaker 3: the film.
Speaker 4: So it is interesting to be like, is everything this
Speaker 4: character says ultimately the person we should be supporting there is? Yeah,
Speaker 4: because that line is the like philosophical thesis I guess
Speaker 4: of the movie.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, way more so than anything Calvin e
Speaker 3: versus or for sure, I didn't make that connection. I also,
Speaker 3: I mean, this movie feels very much a cousin to
Speaker 3: five hundred Days of Summer. I haven't seen five hundred
Speaker 3: Days of Summer recently. Yeah, I mean I haven't really
Speaker 3: revisited it. But I was at Ikea with a man
Speaker 3: recently and was like, wow, is something bad about to
Speaker 3: happen to me?
Speaker 4: Did you run around?
Speaker 3: No, very intentionally stayed stills of behavior. I tried to
Speaker 3: really stay as still as possible and really like stay
Speaker 3: the path and get the plates I had come there for.
Speaker 3: Another similarity that this movie had with five Hundred Days
Speaker 3: the Summer is that I hate the last scene.
Speaker 4: Yes, sure, very similar last seed?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Similar? Yes.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to talk about the ending of this
Speaker 1: movie and the rest of it. All right, James, what
Speaker 1: is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 3: Ruby Sparks, I had not seen this movie, and I
Speaker 3: didn't know a lot about it. I think that we
Speaker 3: were all there in the twenty tens Manic Pixie dream
Speaker 3: Girl mess of attempt to have a conversation, you know,
Speaker 3: which we were a part of, and like, I just
Speaker 3: never got to this movie because based off of like
Speaker 3: what I was catching from this conversation, it seemed like
Speaker 3: to me it was framed as a movie that was
Speaker 3: purpose trading these tropes as opposed to criticizing and interacting
Speaker 3: with them. And I think that that just like stuck
Speaker 3: in my head. And also, to be fair, the marketing
Speaker 3: does not really do much to change your mind. I
Speaker 3: went back and watched the trailer as well as the
Speaker 3: original reviews of this movie, which I'm like, Zoe Cazan
Speaker 3: kind of a playing a game of forty chess there,
Speaker 3: because it's like everyone received this as like a quirky
Speaker 3: what was the god? The Atlantic review Ruby sparks a
Speaker 3: charming tale of boy makes girl, and You're like, uh
Speaker 3: huh uh huh uh huh did they see the scene
Speaker 3: where he made her bark like a dog and call
Speaker 3: him a genius? Apparently they didn't. But yeah, I had
Speaker 3: avoided this movie because I thought it was a perpetrator
Speaker 3: and not a and I was really pleasantly surprised by
Speaker 3: this movie. I really enjoyed it. I mean there's stuff
Speaker 3: about it that I would just love a rundown of
Speaker 3: what the studio notes were for this movie, because I
Speaker 3: feel like that last scene doesn't feel consistent with what
Speaker 3: is happening even minutes before. And I think Zoe Czanne
Speaker 3: is a terrific writer, and so I'm like, I just
Speaker 3: don't think she would do that. But there's a lot
Speaker 3: of cool stuff in this movie that I feel like
Speaker 3: I haven't seen done quite this well in other places.
Speaker 3: I liked it, Caitlin, What's your History?
Speaker 1: I also had never seen it, and I think I
Speaker 1: had a very similar experience as you, Jamie, as far
Speaker 1: as like people would talk about it all the time
Speaker 1: in a pretty critical way, and either I misunderstood what
Speaker 1: they were criticizing, or the people who were criticizing it
Speaker 1: misunderstood what the movie was. Either way, I also thought
Speaker 1: it was like, Wow, a classic example of a manic
Speaker 1: pixie dream girl presented uncritically, and isn't that awesome? And
Speaker 1: so I also was just like, I don't really feel
Speaker 1: compelled to watch this, or again, I might have been
Speaker 1: misunderstanding what people were saying about it. Way, I'd never
Speaker 1: seen it, and so when I was watching it, I
Speaker 1: was like, wait a minute, the things I thought about
Speaker 1: this movie don't seem to be the things that are
Speaker 1: actually here in this movie. So I found it refreshing.
Speaker 1: In some ways, I found it challenging, Like I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: what hang on? And I think I'm going to like
Speaker 1: be processing a lot of my thoughts about this movie
Speaker 1: in real time on this episode. But I was pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised by it, especially going in with like pretty low
Speaker 1: expectations based on the buzz.
Speaker 3: I do feel like if the ending was fused with
Speaker 3: a bit it would like do really well coming out
Speaker 3: right now. And also if the outfits were better.
Speaker 4: Well, I think they were good for the time.
Speaker 3: At the time, they were incredible.
Speaker 4: Well honestly, that is like truly the most dating part
Speaker 4: of my life. So literally every single person I dated
Speaker 4: for like seven years stress like that. So I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's the feminine ideal of like what I imagine people
Speaker 4: should dress like, So I don't have a problem. He
Speaker 4: dressed terribly. He dressed also only in a tan and green.
Speaker 4: It was like such a clear director.
Speaker 1: Stoy is he Shaggy from Scooby Doo.
Speaker 3: He was serving Shaggy the whole movie, including on the poster.
Speaker 4: But I do think the ending is even two years
Speaker 4: later or whenever, like inside Eama, Shumer became the most
Speaker 4: popular show on television. The studio notes would be like end.
Speaker 4: It's the exact opposite way, like we want this to
Speaker 4: be the most heavy handed ending possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he would get hit by a eighteen wheel yeer
Speaker 3: a couple of years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: This movie, I will say, proves a theory that I
Speaker 3: was recently revisiting, or at least Zoe Cuzam feels the
Speaker 3: same way because it is fiction. But that the moment
Speaker 3: someone becomes famous, they stop maturing forever, or at least
Speaker 3: stop maturing in some ways forever. Yeah, and that's Calvin
Speaker 3: to the core. He's behaving so nineteen, this entire movie
Speaker 3: in spite of being thirty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shall I do the recap and then we'll go
Speaker 1: from there.
Speaker 3: Let's recap.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, let's take a break first, and then we'll
Speaker 1: come back.
Speaker 3: And we're back.
Speaker 1: Okay, here is the recap. We open on a silhouetted
Speaker 1: image of a woman being like, there you are. I've
Speaker 1: been looking for you, tee. What why are you looking
Speaker 1: at me like that?
Speaker 3: Zoe zan is he he hahi on the storm, Yes,
Speaker 3: I love it, And then Calvin Weirfields wakes up.
Speaker 1: That's Paul Dano. He was having a dream about this woman.
Speaker 1: Calvin is a writer who ten years ago wrote an
Speaker 1: acclaimed novel when he was only nineteen, but he since
Speaker 1: has not been able to write much of anything.
Speaker 3: I found these scenes triggering.
Speaker 1: I was like, relatable much. We see him, like, you know,
Speaker 1: sitting down trying to write, but his writer's block is
Speaker 1: very intense, so we see him instead hanging out with
Speaker 1: his dog, Scottie. He hangs out with his brother Harry
Speaker 1: played by Chrismasina. Awesome baffling. How in what world are
Speaker 1: they brothers.
Speaker 4: And grew up seemingly in California despite he seems so
Speaker 4: Midwestern and him the most New york Man.
Speaker 3: Right. I've also read in like the original press tour,
Speaker 3: like both Paul Dana and Christmasina were like, We're aware
Speaker 3: we look nothing alike, but we enjoyed it. You're like, okay, okay, okay, boys.
Speaker 1: So Calvin seems to not have much in the way
Speaker 1: of friends. He seems to struggle to meet and connect
Speaker 1: with people. He goes to a therapist, Elliott Gold. His
Speaker 1: name is doctor Rosenthal or something, but Elliott Gold is
Speaker 1: his therapist. He gives Calvin a little writing assignment to
Speaker 1: try to help him to start writing again, and the
Speaker 1: assignment is to write a page where someone meets Calvin's dog,
Speaker 1: Scottie and likes the dog for who he is, despite
Speaker 1: him being skittish and slobbery. Then that night, Calvin has
Speaker 1: a dream about the same woman who we will come
Speaker 1: to know as Ruby Sparks.
Speaker 3: I think their writing in this scene is so good
Speaker 3: because she's just like challenging him in such a movie
Speaker 3: way where I watched this movie back to back twice
Speaker 3: and watching that scene go back, where it's like I
Speaker 3: would have loved that exchange when I was in high school.
Speaker 3: I'm like, Wow, she's not like other girls. She's really
Speaker 3: like given him, like she's a handful. But when you
Speaker 3: watch that scene back, like she's challenging him in the
Speaker 3: safest way possible, Like she's only ever allowed to challenge
Speaker 3: him in a way that is safe for him.
Speaker 1: Also, she's not like other girls. She doesn't know who
Speaker 1: f Scott Fitzgerald is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he gets to tell her for how acclaimed
Speaker 4: of an author is. The books around this movie are
Speaker 4: so they are like a teenager's collection of books.
Speaker 1: Catcher in the Rye, Great Gats be like the stuff
Speaker 1: that you read because you're supposed you like are required
Speaker 1: to in high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really felt like James Franco novelist era unfortunately.
Speaker 4: Which is also this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Speaker 1: Anyway, So this dream woman meets and likes Scottie the Dog,
Speaker 1: and then Calvin wakes up from this dream suddenly very
Speaker 1: inspired by the woman, and he starts writing page after
Speaker 1: page about Ruby Sparks. He has his brother Harry read
Speaker 1: what he's written of this manuscript so far, and Harry
Speaker 1: basically tells him that Calvin does not understand women, and
Speaker 1: that he's like written a very like tropy manic pixie
Speaker 1: dreamgirl type and that no one is going to want
Speaker 1: to read this.
Speaker 3: This Chad is a literary critic. He is absolutely killing
Speaker 3: it in this scene. We'll get back to how his
Speaker 3: wife is treated, because we are told a lot about her,
Speaker 3: even though we see her one time and she's like,
Speaker 3: why is this bra here? You're like, good job movie.
Speaker 4: So he's a sports agent but able to like read
Speaker 4: and digest a short story in like a dinner with
Speaker 4: his brother.
Speaker 3: I really, I actually really liked that choice. I like
Speaker 3: that it is not challenged. They're like, yeah, he's a
Speaker 3: bit of a reader when he's not managing sports?
Speaker 4: Is it a It's also like they let the how
Speaker 4: you code the actors in your brain do so much
Speaker 4: work of filling out who these people are, Like, well,
Speaker 4: he's a Christmas an a type, so obviously he's a
Speaker 4: sport agent. You won't realize that until like way later
Speaker 4: in the movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: So, despite his brother's criticism, Calvin continues to fantasize about
Speaker 1: and write about Ruby, writing this story where she and
Speaker 1: a guy very much like himself down to like that
Speaker 1: character also being named Calvin, being so in love with
Speaker 1: each other. One day, as he is about to leave
Speaker 1: home for a meeting, a woman is suddenly in Calvin's kitchen,
Speaker 1: and this woman is Ruby Sparks, played by Zoe Kazan.
Speaker 3: Ruby. Ruby what her most recent episode, I already brought
Speaker 3: up Shaggy. This is what I bring to the show.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, Shaggy the dog more like Scottie the dog,
Speaker 1: who I think is the best character in the movie
Speaker 1: because he pisses on Calvin's bed and that makes him
Speaker 1: mask who he is.
Speaker 4: Do you think that was inspired by Calvin and Hobbes
Speaker 4: or they guess the image of Oh no, I guess Calvin.
Speaker 4: Calvin is the one that peeces though.
Speaker 1: Oh, because Calvin and Hobbes, Hobbes and Shaw. Anyway, think
Speaker 1: about it, you know.
Speaker 3: Scotti and Calvin, we got there, Scotty and Calvin exactly.
Speaker 4: The three most iconic duos of the last thirty years.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's all making sense.
Speaker 1: Okay. So Ruby Sparks is in Calvin's kitchen and she
Speaker 1: appears to be a real life person who does not
Speaker 1: realize she is a figment of Calvin's imagination that has
Speaker 1: magically materialized, and he will not tell her that for
Speaker 1: a long time. Anyway, Calvin, he's freaking out. He thinks
Speaker 1: he's hallucinating, that he's like, you know, losing his mind,
Speaker 1: and Ruby is just like, what's wrong, babe? Is everything? Okay?
Speaker 1: So Calvin tries to sneak out of the house, but
Speaker 1: Ruby's like, where are you going? Can I come with you?
Speaker 1: So she rides along with him, but then he ditches
Speaker 1: her because he's meeting up with this woman, Mabel played
Speaker 1: by Alia Shokut, who gave him her number at a
Speaker 1: book event. Because she's like kind of like this groupie
Speaker 1: type who's like trying to sleep with him, and he
Speaker 1: doesn't have any friends, so this is like the person
Speaker 1: he called. They go out for coffee, but Ruby spots
Speaker 1: them and thinks Calvin is cheating on her, so Ruby
Speaker 1: starts to make a commotion and he figures no one
Speaker 1: else can hear or see Ruby, but everyone around him
Speaker 1: is like, yes, I can see this woman. So Ruby
Speaker 1: is real in the sense that she now exists in
Speaker 1: the world and everyone can see her, and Calvin is like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I have a real life girlfriend. Now awesome, And then
Speaker 1: we get this montage of like them being in love.
Speaker 1: They're going to a zombie film festival at the Hall
Speaker 1: would Forever Cemetery. They're going to an arcade.
Speaker 3: Like attempt at the IKEA scene.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, they do run through. Is it a video
Speaker 4: game place?
Speaker 1: Yea, sort of like an arcade.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is a pitch perfect. This part of this
Speaker 4: movie is those movies, and at this point you're watching
Speaker 4: a probably like, oh, I guess it's just like another
Speaker 4: one of those movies. If you didn't know that this
Speaker 4: was making fun of that, you'd just be like, Oh,
Speaker 4: I guess we're just going to do that, And I
Speaker 4: haven't seen that for a while.
Speaker 3: So involuntarily like Regina Spector starts playing in the back
Speaker 3: of your head and you're like, no, no, I didn't
Speaker 3: consent to this, right.
Speaker 1: So then Calvin tells his brother how Ruby is real now,
Speaker 1: and Harry is like, that's not possible. Talk to your
Speaker 1: therapist because you've lost your mind. But then Calvin introduces
Speaker 1: Harry to Ruby. Harry still thinks it's some kind of hoax,
Speaker 1: like maybe she's an impostor who's trying to trick Calvin.
Speaker 1: So Harry tells Calvin to write something about her and
Speaker 1: if it comes true, then they'll know that this real.
Speaker 1: So Calvin writes that Ruby speaks fluent French, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly Ruby is speaking fluent French, and Harry is like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. You can make her do anything you want.
Speaker 1: You can give her huge titties, you can you know,
Speaker 1: change her.
Speaker 3: And sleep where he's really going, leaning into the sports
Speaker 3: agent side of his character.
Speaker 4: Not the sympathetic brothers like you need more therapy. But
Speaker 4: now he's like, well, now that I know you're okay,
Speaker 4: immediately my second order.
Speaker 3: And don't give blow jobs after a couple months. That scene,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a low for that character, but again,
Speaker 3: very rewatchable scene where Calvin is like, I wouldn't change
Speaker 3: a hair in Ruby's head. She's amazing.
Speaker 4: I love for Can I ask since I've seen this before,
Speaker 4: so I knew where it was going at that moment,
Speaker 4: were you both still being like maybe fuck this movie?
Speaker 4: Like maybe this movie is doing.
Speaker 1: Is I couldn't tell.
Speaker 4: Yeah, cool because like rewatching that's the first time, like
Speaker 4: my stomach starts hurting or whatever, or like or you're
Speaker 4: just like, don't do this. These people like be different
Speaker 4: people already.
Speaker 3: I do know that I was still very on the
Speaker 3: fence at that point in the movie. But I think that,
Speaker 3: like Paul Dano's performance is really good because on the
Speaker 3: second watch, I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't think I
Speaker 3: believed him the first time. The way that he says it.
Speaker 3: It's like, I think, honestly where I was like, maybe
Speaker 3: this movie is interesting and good because when I saw
Speaker 3: it was written by Zoe kuzannam okay, okay, promising, And
Speaker 3: then when he first calls his ex girlfriend a slut
Speaker 3: in therapy, I'm like, yeah, maybe this movie is going
Speaker 3: to be which if you haven't seen this movie, that
Speaker 3: sounds like a very bizarre comment to be like, maybe
Speaker 3: this movie rules, but like it's to show the like sympathetic,
Speaker 3: like tortured artist writer character and then have him say
Speaker 3: something awful early on in a way that, like, even
Speaker 3: in twenty twelve, you would be like, well, that's an
Speaker 3: obviously cruel thing to say about someone. This person lacks introspection,
Speaker 3: I would get.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think where I was was because we've seen
Speaker 1: him say pretty nasty things about women before this, and
Speaker 1: then the way he just describes and characterizes Ruby. I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, he's a shitty person, yeah, and he
Speaker 1: does not respect when when.
Speaker 3: He gives her the backstory, Oh, we'll talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes. But I was like, oh, I bet he
Speaker 1: is going to try to change and manipulate Ruby, especially
Speaker 1: because he doesn't tell her right away that she's a
Speaker 1: figment of his imagination. But I wasn't sure. Well, I
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if the movie was going to be critical
Speaker 1: of his behavior or just be like here it is,
Speaker 1: isn't this squirky? So at that point I wasn't sure
Speaker 1: where was going to go.
Speaker 4: Also, like the language, especially twenty twelve, especially to a
Speaker 4: male audience member, You're like, yeah, that's how guys talk
Speaker 4: or whatever, like what do you even note? Like the
Speaker 4: subtlety of it is even more subtle than where I
Speaker 4: guess guys more frequently called women's sluts, not necessarily as
Speaker 4: a pejorative, but like clearly Zoe knew, Like you see
Speaker 4: it now, they're like, oh, this is actually she was
Speaker 4: giving bread crumbs. I guess in the first act.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such a rewatchable movie. It's so cool where
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, there are the big obvious things where
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, I don't I don't like this guy.
Speaker 3: But I didn't even realize all of the clues that
Speaker 3: they leave behind of like what a piece of shitty is?
Speaker 3: Just like in real life, what.
Speaker 1: A treat mister snowman? I gave you all the clue
Speaker 1: or what is plan? I gave you all the clues?
Speaker 3: That's from the Snowman. Some man was a guy, right,
Speaker 3: but was a snowman?
Speaker 1: Refer to our Matreon episode about truly my Memory.
Speaker 3: I'm like many Black Mind wipes after every episode.
Speaker 1: I don't know why did.
Speaker 3: I don't know why we did.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we covered that, but I think
Speaker 1: it was just like.
Speaker 3: Lockdown and let's do something amazing. Cool, Let's bring joy
Speaker 3: to the okay to the world.
Speaker 1: Okay. So well, Harry is like, wow, you can change
Speaker 1: her and make her do whatever you want, and Calvin's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm never going to write about her again, and he
Speaker 1: locks his manuscript away in a drawer. But after some time,
Speaker 1: Calvin starts to realize that Ruby isn't this idealized version
Speaker 1: of a woman who he fictionalized, that she's a real
Speaker 1: person who has free will. She isn't at his beck
Speaker 1: and call all the time, you know, sometimes she's too
Speaker 1: tired for sex. She wants to get a job at
Speaker 1: a coffee shop so that she doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: financially dependent on him.
Speaker 3: The way that he reacts to her wanting a job
Speaker 3: by being like, look over here, this thing I just
Speaker 3: said no to you can have it. Now, shut up
Speaker 3: about getting a job. And you're like, oh, no, what
Speaker 3: year is a oh? And that's howats all women?
Speaker 1: Mm hm. And then Ruby is also starting to realize
Speaker 1: that Calvin is a pretty shitty boyfriend and person, especially
Speaker 1: after they go to this trip to visit calvin mom
Speaker 1: played by Annette Benning and her husband Antonio benderis where
Speaker 1: the whole time, Calvin is being just like kind of mean,
Speaker 1: and he's very stubborn. He's no fun to be around.
Speaker 1: He's disrespectful, and Ruby calls him out for it, and
Speaker 1: she also tells him that she's lonely. She wants to
Speaker 1: make friends. She wants to take an art class and
Speaker 1: spend a few nights at her own apartment each week.
Speaker 1: So she's, you know, trying to establish healthy boundaries. And
Speaker 1: he does not like this. He gets more and more insecure.
Speaker 1: He cannot deal with her being her own person.
Speaker 3: He doesn't want her to have friends.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And one night, when she's out with her
Speaker 1: friends from her class, he takes the manuscript that he
Speaker 1: was writing about Ruby. He takes it back out of
Speaker 1: the drawer and writes Ruby was miserable without Calvin. And
Speaker 1: then he immediately gets a call from Ruby saying I
Speaker 1: want to come home. And then she becomes cartoonishly clingy,
Speaker 1: and codependence.
Speaker 4: Gets do some acting. It's a big yes.
Speaker 1: It's so good in the yes, yeah, yep, which he
Speaker 1: starts to feel suffocated by this clinginess, so then he
Speaker 1: types another sentence that Ruby is filled with effervescent joy,
Speaker 1: and then she becomes cartoonishly and annoyingly joyous.
Speaker 4: Annoying to him, I think this is I think it's
Speaker 4: very cute to.
Speaker 3: Those it's everything but the like being woken up by
Speaker 3: a baby deer kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And now he's concerned that she's only happy because he
Speaker 1: wrote her to be happy, but he wants to be
Speaker 1: able to make her organically value concern, so then he
Speaker 1: writes Ruby was just Ruby happy or sad however she felt,
Speaker 1: and now it seems like she's experiencing mood swings and
Speaker 1: that she doesn't really have control over her own emotions,
Speaker 1: and he's trying to make her feel better. He's like,
Speaker 1: let's go to this book party. And they go to
Speaker 1: this party hosted by another writer played by Steve Coogan
Speaker 1: who tries to come on to Ruby, and then Calvin
Speaker 1: catches them together in a swimming pool when they're in
Speaker 1: their underwear, so Calvin freaks out and brings her home.
Speaker 1: There's a whole interaction also between Calvin and his ex
Speaker 1: girlfriend Lyla at this party. We'll talk about that later,
Speaker 1: but at home, Calvin is like, Ruby, you embarrassed me.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be my girlfriend, so act like it,
Speaker 1: and they have this whole argument that will unpack later,
Speaker 1: but basically, she's like, you don't get to decide what
Speaker 1: I do and what I don't do, Like I'm my
Speaker 1: own person. And he's like, you want to bet because
Speaker 1: I can make you do whatever I want. And she's like, what.
Speaker 3: This scene is brutal, absolute hard to watch.
Speaker 4: I measure writing it for yourself to do with yours.
Speaker 4: She Ruby sparks herself.
Speaker 3: Kill you guys, what are you doing?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Really wild? But Calvin goes to his typewriter and
Speaker 1: there's a whole scene that plays out like a horror
Speaker 1: movie where he types a bunch of stuff and makes
Speaker 1: her do things and prevents her from doing other things,
Speaker 1: such as leaving, to show her that she is his creation,
Speaker 1: and she's obviously horrified and betrayed and she's sobbing. And
Speaker 1: then when she finally has the opportunity, she runs away.
Speaker 1: And then Calvin, I guess, realizing that he shouldn't have
Speaker 1: done all that stuff, returns to his typewriter and writes
Speaker 1: as soon as Ruby left the house, the past released her.
Speaker 1: She was no longer Calvin's creation. She was free, and
Speaker 1: he is devastated that she's gone, But again he is
Speaker 1: like it was the right thing to do, and we're
Speaker 1: like duh. And then the movie ends with Calvin turning
Speaker 1: this story that just unfolded into a new novel. The
Speaker 1: novel gets published, people read it, they love it. And
Speaker 1: then one day Calvin is walking Scottie the dog in
Speaker 1: the park and Scotty runs over.
Speaker 3: The same scene where it's like sort of a Frankenstein
Speaker 3: of yeah, kind of eternal Sunshine and the end of
Speaker 3: five hundred Days of Summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, where Scotty runs over to Ruby, who does not
Speaker 1: recognize Calvin or remember anything about their relationship since he
Speaker 1: had like released her from the past, And then they
Speaker 1: start chatting and it's implied that they're going to reconnect
Speaker 1: and possibly like get together. The end run the other
Speaker 1: way truly. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick
Speaker 1: break and we'll be back to discuss, and we're back. Okay,
Speaker 1: we start?
Speaker 3: Where can we start?
Speaker 1: Where can we start?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Again. I was expecting something very different based on the
Speaker 1: comments and criticism I had heard about this movie in
Speaker 1: years past, and was surprised to learn that it is
Speaker 1: like to some extent, an indictment of the type of
Speaker 1: like misogynist man who is not capable of a relationship
Speaker 1: with a real human woman because he projects some fantasy
Speaker 1: or ideal onto her. Then he resents her.
Speaker 3: Movie that we've covered with Jesse before.
Speaker 1: What a man falling in love with falt some one
Speaker 1: who's not a real woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, their idea of who they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then resents when she cannot live up to
Speaker 1: his like projection or idealized version of her, and he
Speaker 1: resents that she has free will, and which is very
Speaker 1: abusive along the way.
Speaker 3: The core of this movie is he hates that his
Speaker 3: girlfriends have free will. Unfortunate.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, it's sort of my main problem with the movie,
Speaker 4: not philosophically, but sort of, Well, the ending is a
Speaker 4: whole other thing, but like they spend so much time
Speaker 4: with him trying to prove that he's not going crazy
Speaker 4: that it then underlines the sort of like magic of
Speaker 4: it where I feel like if he accepted that she exists,
Speaker 4: his actions would feel less because of the magical concept
Speaker 4: and more because of his behavior, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Like it sometimes I feel like it's supposed to be
Speaker 4: ambiguous if he's making decisions, because like, well, you can't
Speaker 4: have a job, you don't have a social security number,
Speaker 4: you're a fake person or whatever. Yeah, But I only
Speaker 4: am thinking that because they spend so much time, and
Speaker 4: that seems like such a studio thing, being like, no
Speaker 4: one's gonna believe this. You have to have three different
Speaker 4: characters verified, right, And I think that's partly like first
Speaker 4: time screenwriter getting to make a movie. She can't be
Speaker 4: like nine million movies do. Like every single Woody Allen
Speaker 4: movie literally does this where they're just like, some magical
Speaker 4: thing happens and they don't have to prove it. And
Speaker 4: I think this is all to say. I do think
Speaker 4: it obscures the like, oh, I'm watching a rom com,
Speaker 4: like a magical rom com quality to it, because you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's a magical rom com where this thing happens. I
Speaker 4: guess it's also how he's able to justify why this
Speaker 4: is a book at the end of it.
Speaker 3: Also, I feel like setting up the therapist character and
Speaker 3: then having him not included for the vast majority of
Speaker 3: the movie. I'm like, he has to find out like
Speaker 3: if that's gonna be the thrust, like or maybe don't
Speaker 3: include that character. I don't know. I was confused about.
Speaker 4: I also thought he's a really well written, therapist and
Speaker 4: really well performed. He goes can it be bad and goes,
Speaker 4: I'd like for it to be very bad. I was like,
Speaker 4: everything about that seed is perfectly and then he's just gone, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I saw a piece in Collider a couple of years
Speaker 3: ago in twenty and twenty one ever heard of it
Speaker 3: by Tony Oysen, which you know it's I had this
Speaker 3: thought as I was watching, and I think that this
Speaker 3: is maybe a trapping of current film criticism where you're like,
Speaker 3: this movie is actually a horror movie. Everything about that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: But I do think that this writer kind of unpacked
Speaker 3: that pretty well, and save for the ending, the movie
Speaker 3: kind of plays out that way in a way that
Speaker 3: feels mostly intentional. But I've seen this. I've seen this
Speaker 3: movie characterize so many different ways in different like i've
Speaker 3: seen a characterize, and I think the way that we're
Speaker 3: going to be coming at it today where this is
Speaker 3: like a I think, like such a well done sort
Speaker 3: of takedown of this like stock character that viewers in
Speaker 3: twenty twelve weren't even prepared and like did not maybe
Speaker 3: get it. I also described when it came out as
Speaker 3: more of a commentary on like the beginning of a
Speaker 3: relationship versus the difficult reality of actually being with someone,
Speaker 3: which I feel like is referenced more in the relationship
Speaker 3: between the brothers of Like, No, she's a person, and like,
Speaker 3: things will not be amazing every day and it's not
Speaker 3: going to be like dick sucking city. That's not how
Speaker 3: a relationship works, and he's like, I'm sure, sure, Christmas, Na,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna get my like anyways. So there's that
Speaker 3: read of it as well, and I've seen Zoe xand
Speaker 3: speak to both parts of it, so I just want
Speaker 3: to acknowledge that, but I am more interested in what
Speaker 3: we're talking about. You're like, yeah, relationships are hard, But
Speaker 3: I feel like that would play out if the story
Speaker 3: wasn't so based in control of one over the other,
Speaker 3: because it's like, I think that you can have that
Speaker 3: discussion in a very like surface sense, but it only
Speaker 3: applies to this couple so far, because it's like he
Speaker 3: is ge peddling the shit out of her the entire
Speaker 3: Like she can barely participate in their relationship because of
Speaker 3: the controls that are the reason that she's even there.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. Yeah, that rate of it didn't
Speaker 3: hit for me as much.
Speaker 4: If anything, I feel like it uses that theme as
Speaker 4: a sort of like trojan horse for like the actual
Speaker 4: like satirical point is making, right, Like I think that's
Speaker 4: essentially like what five Hundred Days of Summer is about, right, Like,
Speaker 4: insomuch as five hundred Days of Summer does not feel
Speaker 4: like this movie at all, even though like that is
Speaker 4: essentially the point of five hundred Day Summer is that
Speaker 4: because by the she barks like a dog part, you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: holy shit, like that scene a shot like a horror film.
Speaker 4: You can see a version of this with a different
Speaker 4: third act that become like a Black Mirror episode, like
Speaker 4: if it's like really heavy handed, but instead it's sort
Speaker 4: of like just subtle enough that essentially I think it
Speaker 4: makes it a much more like graceful critique, but also
Speaker 4: I guess can make it so dumb people or people
Speaker 4: who are not prone no, not you, like I'm just
Speaker 4: a magic male critics being like what an interesting rom com? Right,
Speaker 4: So it's like and I do think that's like always
Speaker 4: the sort of problem with satire where either like I'm
Speaker 4: gonna be so heavy handed that it's so annoying, right
Speaker 4: like most Black Mirror episodes, or do it like this,
Speaker 4: which is like, oh, it can kind of trick certain
Speaker 4: people into being like, oh, I thought I was going
Speaker 4: to rom com. I now realize my title understanding of
Speaker 4: dating is wrong.
Speaker 3: Right. I don't like the last scene, but I feel
Speaker 3: like if it was maybe played a little bit different,
Speaker 3: it could have that black mirror quality to it, and
Speaker 3: I like mileage definitely varies on that. But the idea that,
Speaker 3: for whatever reason I don't understand the magical rules of
Speaker 3: this universe that Mine in Black wipes Ruby's memories the
Speaker 3: way that it does every time I press stop on
Speaker 3: my zoom recorder. But like the fact that she could
Speaker 3: be much like Clementine and Joel in Eternal Sunshine of
Speaker 3: the Spotless Mind, she could be stuck in this loop
Speaker 3: of having to like be with this nightmare of a
Speaker 3: person who is incapable of growth forever question mark. But
Speaker 3: I don't think that that's what the last thing's trying
Speaker 3: to say. I think there's a read of it that
Speaker 3: you're like, oh, she's trapped, She's trapped, and that is
Speaker 3: the ending of a horror movie that is final destination.
Speaker 1: Right, But no, I think the ending is actually like
Speaker 1: the studio being like this needs a happier, more uplifting ending,
Speaker 1: So let's have it so that he meets her again
Speaker 1: and now he's a redeemed man. And even though he
Speaker 1: was so abusive to her prior to this, he redeemed
Speaker 1: himself because he apologized in the book that he wrote
Speaker 1: about and it is.
Speaker 3: Actively Yeah, the thing he's actively profiting from and will
Speaker 3: buy a second house with good for him and we it's.
Speaker 4: I don't understand what narrative thrust we're supposed to believe
Speaker 4: earned any sort of redemption.
Speaker 3: So glad narrative thrust is he's really been getting into
Speaker 3: the word therust recently, and just even the tacit support
Speaker 3: of it, it makes me physically ill. No, I agree,
Speaker 3: And I think that like a different version of this again,
Speaker 3: it's like the two movies that it feels like that
Speaker 3: last scene are influenced by. It's not completely dissimilar from
Speaker 3: the end of Eternal Sunshine, except you do get the
Speaker 3: clear feeling from Eternal Sunshine that their relationship will fail again. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it will fail for the same reasons, and they are
Speaker 3: agreeing that they're going to do it anyways. Where it's
Speaker 3: like Ruby again, she is just like she has no autonomy,
Speaker 3: she has none of the information, and so she is
Speaker 3: like doomed to be because it's like, what is he
Speaker 3: going to do in this happy version ending? Is he
Speaker 3: going to not tell her again? Yeah, it seems like
Speaker 3: it's about to happen.
Speaker 1: You won't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a fix for now. I'm like if he
Speaker 4: literally if the movie cuts with him being like, I
Speaker 4: have to tell you something.
Speaker 3: Then that's interesting. Ooh. I kind of like, yeah, very
Speaker 3: would have to change and then you're like, oh, this
Speaker 3: was kind of a horror movie because I think Calvin
Speaker 3: is a really I mean, he's despicable, he's the worst,
Speaker 3: but he's a really interesting, like well written character where
Speaker 3: he is saying stuff at the beginning of the movie,
Speaker 3: like he has that line girls aren't interested in me,
Speaker 3: They're interested in some idea of me, which is basically
Speaker 3: identical to something Clementine says in Eternal Sunshine, and he
Speaker 3: does mean that he is worried about it. Seems like
Speaker 3: part of the reason he's reclusive is because he's insecure
Speaker 3: about his work, obviously based on his past relationship, and
Speaker 3: he's worried about being I guess in he feels the
Speaker 3: reason he's not in a relationship is because he's afraid
Speaker 3: that they will want mister cool literary guy and not
Speaker 3: who he actually is. Problem being he has no idea
Speaker 3: who he actually is and has no interest.
Speaker 1: Well that, And it's like, I think this movie is
Speaker 1: like kind of commenting on the hypocrisy of this exactly
Speaker 1: because Ruby says that exact thing later, right, His concern
Speaker 1: is I want someone who wants me for me, not
Speaker 1: some idea of me, And then all he wants is
Speaker 1: his idea of what a girlfriend should be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is like, I just think it's so well
Speaker 3: because I didn't catch that on the I mean, you
Speaker 3: can't really if you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 3: That line feels kind of innocuous in the first viewing,
Speaker 3: but on the second viewing and you're like, damn, she's good,
Speaker 3: she got my ass good. And that scene is doubled
Speaker 3: down on when his relationship with Lila is clarified at
Speaker 3: that party, being as vague as possible. I have a
Speaker 3: friend who went through something like that not too long ago,
Speaker 3: where everyone's version of their breakup is going to be
Speaker 3: different and never completely objectively accurate. Impossible to have an
Speaker 3: objective experience of that. But similar to how like Calvin
Speaker 3: chose the element of the breakup that was painful for him,
Speaker 3: because of course, getting broken up with after your parent
Speaker 3: has recently died would be painful for anyone that's disorienting,
Speaker 3: but chooses the one th that requires no self examination
Speaker 3: on his part to blame the entire failure of their relationship.
Speaker 3: We're removing contexts of years of when his father was
Speaker 3: alive and he was a piece of shit. And I
Speaker 3: don't know, I mean, I think that that is like
Speaker 3: a pretty common thing that you see in breakups that
Speaker 3: doesn't really know a gender in how it's perpetrated. But
Speaker 3: I see men do it a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I really liked that inclusion of that scene
Speaker 1: with him and Lila at the party toward the end
Speaker 1: of the movie, because again, the only context we have
Speaker 1: up until that point was she broke up with him
Speaker 1: shortly after his father died. He calls her a heartless slut.
Speaker 1: She I think was his only past relationship they were
Speaker 1: together for five years. Other than that, we don't know anything.
Speaker 1: And then we get her side of the story, and
Speaker 1: I'm like fully on board with I'm like, yes, I
Speaker 1: believe everything you're saying lie.
Speaker 3: And she also acknowledges that it hurt that she chose
Speaker 3: the moment to break up with him that she did,
Speaker 3: but also that that doesn't mean that she was wrong
Speaker 3: or needs to regret it, and like having that full
Speaker 3: messiness acknowledged. And also it's so clear that like, yeah,
Speaker 3: he couldn't love her for who she is, and when
Speaker 3: she started to want things outside of their relationship, he
Speaker 3: couldn't handle it.
Speaker 1: He couldn't handle it. He couldn't handle that she was
Speaker 1: also an aspiring novelist, Like he felt very threatened and
Speaker 1: was making progress, right, he begrudgingly helped her in her career,
Speaker 1: but again he just like didn't want her to be
Speaker 1: more successful than him or anything like that. Yeah, she says, like,
Speaker 1: you weren't curious about me. You just had this image
Speaker 1: of who I was, and anything I did that contradicted
Speaker 1: it you just ignored. And this is exactly what he
Speaker 1: does to Ruby. And we're like, yeah, okay, mister pattern
Speaker 1: of behavior, Oh.
Speaker 3: God is ask Kathan.
Speaker 4: I also think, I mean, part of the reason I
Speaker 4: think the character works and that you allow yourself to
Speaker 4: sort of be surprised or tricked or whatever. By the
Speaker 4: movie is that, like Zoe seems empathetic to like writers
Speaker 4: and this character as a writer. And I do think
Speaker 4: it's from a few things. One, it's like our parents
Speaker 4: are famously writers. She comes from a very famous all
Speaker 4: the way, all the ways down nepo baby. But also
Speaker 4: like she is dealing with like how she is perceived
Speaker 4: in Hollywood or whatever, Like she understands that she grew
Speaker 4: up in Hollywood, so she knows different types of people.
Speaker 4: And I do think there's a deep understanding of this
Speaker 4: person's psychology that's not just like a sensitive misogynist. It's
Speaker 4: just like a cartoon villain's like there you.
Speaker 3: Ever heard that turn of phrase before? What a scary phrase, But.
Speaker 4: It just like clearly she's like, oh, I know how
Speaker 4: the wheels of this person's brain work to make them
Speaker 4: the victim of all situations, and like how good they are.
Speaker 4: It's almost like because these people are writers, their ability
Speaker 4: to create the other person in relationships is like heightened.
Speaker 4: And because the aracters were written as writers, it makes
Speaker 4: sense as well. You're like, well, like it makes sense
Speaker 4: that he would make up fake people in real relationships
Speaker 4: and fake relationships. He's a writer. That's what he does,
Speaker 4: and I think that allows it to not just be
Speaker 4: you know, a black Mirror episode or whatever, where it's
Speaker 4: like it's just an idea of a person and you
Speaker 4: just project nothing. It's honest, Like Paul Dano is not
Speaker 4: a blank vessel. He's like a very specifically written person.
Speaker 4: She wrote it for him, and.
Speaker 3: Also like cool with Paul Dano to like take that on,
Speaker 3: and I think, like, do it really thoughtfully. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine shooting that scene with someone I'd been in a
Speaker 3: relationship with for five years. But then I can't imagine
Speaker 3: being in a relationship for five years, so it's complicated. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there are other parts of the second If you watch
Speaker 3: this movie, unfortunately you do have to watch it again
Speaker 3: soon after because it is just like a very rewarding rewatch.
Speaker 3: I think that another element of his character that resonated
Speaker 3: for me and felt familiar perhaps was that Calvin has
Speaker 3: this very juvenile again, just like the amount of guardrails
Speaker 3: that this guy has set up to resist any introspection
Speaker 3: or self reflection. It's like the corn Mazon signs, Like
Speaker 3: it's unbelievable how he's done this, and he has this
Speaker 3: you know core belief that like women don't like him.
Speaker 3: He also has a very clear idea of what constitutes
Speaker 3: a bad guy and a bad partner, and he repeats
Speaker 3: it over and over in a way that is like
Speaker 3: it reminds me of like tropes we've talked about in
Speaker 3: the past, Katling, where it's like patriarchy, the guy where
Speaker 3: you're just like the most like he's like, kicks the
Speaker 3: door down, pulls someone's hair, and is like, I don't
Speaker 3: think women should vote. And then any other man in
Speaker 3: the room, because this guy has behaved so terribly, is
Speaker 3: given like narrative impunity to act in more subtly misogynistic
Speaker 3: ways because there is this blowhard and the way that
Speaker 3: he describes I mean, the two things that stick out
Speaker 3: to me is like the where he's imagining Ruby before
Speaker 3: she crosses into the real world, where she's like, I
Speaker 3: usually date guys that are kind of like shitty to me.
Speaker 3: And then he says why would you date a guy
Speaker 3: like that? Which is always what the guy who was
Speaker 3: about to do that says immediately before he starts doing it.
Speaker 3: Bone chilling interaction to watch. And then I think the
Speaker 3: choices that he makes to flesh out her character is
Speaker 3: also very telling of how he views himself to be
Speaker 3: not like other guys, which is, yeah, we talked about
Speaker 3: not like other girls all the time, but he clearly
Speaker 3: thinks he is like different from all these other men.
Speaker 3: And also, what was this book he wrote when he
Speaker 3: was nineteen about? Because this writing is stinky. She's twenty
Speaker 3: six from Dayton, Ohio. Her first crushes are Humphrey Bogart
Speaker 3: and John Lennon, kicked out of high school for He
Speaker 3: also projects a story of child sex abuse onto her
Speaker 3: to romanticize her.
Speaker 1: And make it like it was her fault.
Speaker 3: There is like a romantic lark that she took when
Speaker 3: she was a child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, he says this.
Speaker 3: At one point, She's like, I'm a mess, and he's like,
Speaker 3: I love that you're a mess. But he doesn't. He
Speaker 3: like loves The parts of her messiness that he finds
Speaker 3: charming are like waighs in for him to control her
Speaker 3: of like she doesn't know how to pay her bills. Well,
Speaker 3: that's the way for me to control her. Little things
Speaker 3: that he enjoys doing. But when it comes to actually
Speaker 3: being a person he does, I don't know. It's all planted,
Speaker 3: really really thoughtfully.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like he only likes the part of her
Speaker 4: that's like, instead of kissing, she jumps into a pool
Speaker 4: with her clothes.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm shy, but.
Speaker 4: That scene where she's the sort of character breakdown scene
Speaker 4: does feel like literally a note for note five hundred
Speaker 4: days a summer thing, because I do feel like that
Speaker 4: movie uses dating an older man as a way of
Speaker 4: showing like she's sort of like on particular, it's so
Speaker 4: hard to understand like what those writers were thinking, where
Speaker 4: it's clear Zoe was thinking, this is what those guys
Speaker 4: think is like cool or whatever exactly.
Speaker 1: It's like I know that Zoe Kauzanne rejects the calling
Speaker 1: of Ruby Sparks the character a manic pixie dream girl,
Speaker 1: and I tend to agree, like this movie isn't putting
Speaker 1: out that character as like, here's a story about a
Speaker 1: manic pixie dream girl. It's an indictment of that trope.
Speaker 1: But the character that he develops in this list of characteristics,
Speaker 1: he's like, I think, rattling off to his therapist toward
Speaker 1: the beginning, he has developed a manic pixie dream girl. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then when she turns out to not be that
Speaker 1: and be a much more like nuanced and complex person.
Speaker 1: He doesn't know how to interact or deal with that.
Speaker 1: And then again, like Harry, his brother, who is somehow
Speaker 1: like a genius in literary criticism, and his inconsistencies are
Speaker 1: I don't know what to make of them exactly, but
Speaker 1: he's just.
Speaker 3: Willing to give it a pass just because it's like,
Speaker 3: I do feel like there's I mean, not so cartoonishly so,
Speaker 3: but I do feel like there's people like that out
Speaker 3: there who like, are essentially good partners in their actions,
Speaker 3: but also talk shit about their partners in a way
Speaker 3: that can be ugly.
Speaker 1: Let me just list a few things he says, and
Speaker 1: they're almost all in one conversation, but it's in the car, no,
Speaker 1: when they're like sitting by the pool. Oh oh, okay,
Speaker 1: write the manuscript. So he's, well, there's that. The car
Speaker 1: is pret because that's all. So he says, like, okay,
Speaker 1: who reads love stories women? And it was like, okay, reductive.
Speaker 1: But then he's like, but women aren't going to want
Speaker 1: to read this because quirky, messy women whose problems only
Speaker 1: make them endearing are not real. He's like, women will
Speaker 1: see right through this, and you've written a shitty character
Speaker 1: and he says, like the honeymoon phase thing doesn't last.
Speaker 1: Women are different up closes, he starts talking about his
Speaker 1: own relationship, and then he says some weird things because
Speaker 1: he's like, I love Susie, my wife, his wife, but
Speaker 1: she's a weirdo. For example, sometimes she's me as fuck
Speaker 1: for no reason. You're like, okay, sir, let's.
Speaker 3: Like recalibrate our definition of weirdo here because I'm not understanding.
Speaker 1: And also, is she mean as fuck or are you
Speaker 1: just a dipshit who's like not a great partner and
Speaker 1: she's calling you out for it? I don't know.
Speaker 4: I do think that line makes the most sense of
Speaker 4: like other things he says is too sophisticated, but that
Speaker 4: feels like actually his best way of being like both
Speaker 4: empathetic to his wife but also unable to understand. Yeah
Speaker 4: why right, So he's like, women are complicated, like my
Speaker 4: wife confuses me all the time, right, And you're like, well,
Speaker 4: at least he understands that they're not only projections, but
Speaker 4: like he should not hypothetically be sophisticated enough to be
Speaker 4: like and that's because women are three dimensional, you know,
Speaker 4: Like he's not like a media studies professor. Right, so
Speaker 4: it's like he's a sports agent of course, which you
Speaker 4: don't know that. But so that line I thought was
Speaker 4: like exactly, I think what I can magine that read
Speaker 4: a level.
Speaker 3: Of emotional intelligence they would be capable of.
Speaker 4: I also think part of the problem is there's so
Speaker 4: few characters in this movie. Yeah, that like ultimately characters
Speaker 4: have to carry weight beyond their roles because you're like,
Speaker 4: it's only like three actors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there's like little they're like, we have
Speaker 3: Antonio Banderas for thirty six hours have fun data. He's
Speaker 3: gonna make a chair, very magic mic of him to do.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, yeah's magic micing. But I do like
Speaker 3: his version of like a homemade better than chair better.
Speaker 3: But also it looks like a prop from the Blair
Speaker 3: Witch Project, though I don't know. Before we hop back,
Speaker 3: I just I wanted to take a moment for Susie
Speaker 3: because we are sort of talking about her. Yes, here's
Speaker 3: Susie Corner there felt to me like and speaking to
Speaker 3: yours just saying Jesse, like the fact that she just
Speaker 3: does not get a lot of screen time at all.
Speaker 3: I think she's talked about more than we actually see
Speaker 3: her talking, which to me kind of undercut. But what
Speaker 3: that's I think, like, really the main weakness of this
Speaker 3: movie for me is I wish that, But it depends
Speaker 3: on who you view to be the main character of
Speaker 3: this movie. I do wish that we got more moments
Speaker 3: with women. I think it would have been cool if
Speaker 3: we got more moments with Ruby and women, because I
Speaker 3: think that not to be gender prescriptive, but people who
Speaker 3: have been in bad relationships can smell it on you
Speaker 3: a little bit, and it would have been cool to
Speaker 3: see her have an interaction with someone who is like,
Speaker 3: things don't feel quite right. I think it would have
Speaker 3: been cool to give Ruby some sort of friend or
Speaker 3: ally to like help her tease out like I don't know.
Speaker 3: That undercuts the moment where she's completely shocked. But also
Speaker 3: no person she would meet in the world would be like,
Speaker 3: I know what's happening. Paul Dano writes down what you
Speaker 3: do and that's why you can speak French now, But
Speaker 3: just like someone for her to process that confusion would
Speaker 3: have been cool, and Susie would have been an interesting
Speaker 3: character to maybe be that person. But we don't know
Speaker 3: anything about her. We know that she's a weirdo and
Speaker 3: maybe she's mean, but also maybe she's not. We don't
Speaker 3: know enough about her to even get a read on
Speaker 3: what the reality of that would be. And then also
Speaker 3: she almost left him once. Hmm, I forgot about that part,
Speaker 3: which I think is a cool detail. But again, if
Speaker 3: you don't know the character is just like, well, she's
Speaker 3: just sort of like plot meat. This is kind of
Speaker 3: how she's treated.
Speaker 1: And she's I think the only person of color with
Speaker 1: any significant speaking lines. But again she's also not one
Speaker 1: of the least developed characters and yeah, not significant.
Speaker 4: Well it's like I guess alia. That's why I thought,
Speaker 4: like if I read the script and somehow had this
Speaker 4: ability to give Zoe a nome and Fleishman in Trouble
Speaker 4: did not exist already, but yet time how I knew it.
Speaker 4: It's like it'd be so useful if the third act
Speaker 4: switch perspective, because like now, it's like, what does a
Speaker 4: person with no memory of anything but a personality and
Speaker 4: a history, how do they become a person? That would
Speaker 4: be interesting, that's not the movie was trying to make
Speaker 4: a comment on people like Paul Dano or whatever. And
Speaker 4: I imagine also, who knows if the duty was like, well,
Speaker 4: got to follow the protagonist, which is mister man Paul Dano.
Speaker 4: Ruby Sparks is a manifestation for him to like grow up.
Speaker 4: It did feel like a very that time, where like
Speaker 4: that's the only plot a man could do, which is like,
Speaker 4: I mean, it's literally exactly what happened with five hundred
Speaker 4: days summer. Even though it is making fun of five
Speaker 4: hundred days a summer, the plot still follows that way, even
Speaker 4: beyond when it's like useful for us as the viewer, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean any sort of perspective shift, even if it
Speaker 3: doesn't do the hard fleshman is in trouble thing. To
Speaker 3: see Ruby in a scene without Calvin, I think would
Speaker 3: have been useful, and I don't think would have necessarily
Speaker 3: challenged the reality of the movie we're in already.
Speaker 4: Does she have a scene where she talks to his mom?
Speaker 1: I can't remember, not really one on one, I don't
Speaker 1: say sure, ooh, now I need to watch the third time.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure that we outside of when she's like
Speaker 3: calling him from a bar, I don't know that we
Speaker 3: ever see a scene where they're not together, because she
Speaker 3: I think recaps a conversation she had with his mom
Speaker 3: to him. I'm pretty sure that that's how we find
Speaker 3: out about.
Speaker 4: That, because can you imagine that scene, which would in
Speaker 4: Solva Bechdel problem but like still would be like she
Speaker 4: goes like look my boys, blah blah blah, you know,
Speaker 4: like something. You can imagine that scene where like she
Speaker 4: knows that both her sons have these sort of like
Speaker 4: problems with women, but like something, something, something, at least
Speaker 4: that would be like, what is Annette Benning's perspective on
Speaker 4: any of these things happening other than she has a
Speaker 4: nice plant and like it's cool to be married to
Speaker 4: Antonio Benderis, whose character's name is mort not remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah that, Like again, I really really like Zoeka Is
Speaker 3: in I think she's like some of our s tier nepotism,
Speaker 3: I really do, but I do like I thought the
Speaker 3: mom character again kind of like a missed opportunity and
Speaker 3: felt very like I've seen this character a million times,
Speaker 3: like Polo mom to Woo Woo mom, unless that's like
Speaker 3: her being This is a clear rom com stock character
Speaker 3: that we've seen before, so I don't know, I'd be curious,
Speaker 3: like what the reasoning was. I understand that like on
Speaker 3: the rewatch Calvin's reaction to his own mother is a
Speaker 3: huge red flag and very very self involved, where he
Speaker 3: clearly is unwilling to accept a version of his mother
Speaker 3: that is not comforting and familiar to him, which is
Speaker 3: how he treats women in general. I think it's interesting
Speaker 3: that there is I don't really know what the timeline is,
Speaker 3: but there is like an undercurrent of like Calvin very
Speaker 3: likely has not processed grieving for his father and is
Speaker 3: projecting that onto his mom, certainly more so than his brother,
Speaker 3: who he sees all the time. It seems like he
Speaker 3: avoids his mom and judges her for being in love again.
Speaker 3: And I think we're led to believe embracing a truer
Speaker 3: version of herself. Yeah, but like I wish that they
Speaker 3: used her more.
Speaker 4: It's interesting because now that you talk about it from
Speaker 4: the respective of grief, right, So he's like essentially, as
Speaker 4: we said, like he's nineteen and never stays nineteen, and
Speaker 4: then like he responds like a kids dad died, and
Speaker 4: then he resents people who respond like a grown up
Speaker 4: whose partner died or whatever. And it's like that scene
Speaker 4: with him and the bunny or whatever in the therapist's
Speaker 4: office where he's like, not only does he need a
Speaker 4: bunny to comfort him or whatever? He then is like
Speaker 4: jealous that maybe someone else, right, and that is like
Speaker 4: how does sort of his grief and need to be
Speaker 4: comfort and his possessative interact with each other. And you
Speaker 4: see it all from that scene, right, you just wouldn't
Speaker 4: think of it. Right at that scene, You're like, Oh,
Speaker 4: he's a quirky boy and he's gonna beet a quirky girl,
Speaker 4: and this is gonna be like and there is a
Speaker 4: thing where his characters only referred to as a boy,
Speaker 4: like they're all girls and boys, so there is something
Speaker 4: where like, oh, of course a boy wants a girl, right,
Speaker 4: Like follow.
Speaker 3: It up on when Christmasina is like, you haven't written
Speaker 3: a woman, You've written a girl. Kind of clarifies maybe
Speaker 3: what that means, even though I'm like justice for girls.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like I'm starting to I'm like, is this
Speaker 3: the most genius movie of all time? Because I also
Speaker 3: think you see early indicates of the type of person
Speaker 3: he is in the way that he treats his dog,
Speaker 3: where first of all, he I think it's no mistake
Speaker 3: that he later makes Ruby act like his dog, but
Speaker 3: it's a really early conversation between him and his therapist
Speaker 3: that seems kind of innocuous, but it's like he wants
Speaker 3: to have a dog because he wants to have fun
Speaker 3: with his dog. But every time we see that he
Speaker 3: needs to take care of his dog, he's annoyed. He
Speaker 3: doesn't want to do it. He wants to offfload the
Speaker 3: difficult part of having a dog to someone else, and
Speaker 3: that's really depressing because it's like he views women as
Speaker 3: dogs and that he also doesn't want to care to
Speaker 3: the difficult parts of a human relationship.
Speaker 1: And he wanted the dog so that there would be
Speaker 1: this kind of built in excuse for people to stop
Speaker 1: and pet the dog, and then he'd meet people, because
Speaker 1: he seems to struggle meeting with people and connecting with people,
Speaker 1: but he's never like looked into why that is.
Speaker 3: Or they're like, I can't criticize someone for getting a
Speaker 3: pet to feel more connected to the world.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not criticizing, but.
Speaker 3: Totally like it's like another indication of like he will
Speaker 3: do backflips to avoid self reflection.
Speaker 4: You know what's an interesting example like the Alia Shotcat scene,
Speaker 4: which is so he's at first you're like he's using
Speaker 4: this person. But even when she's like we're gonna have sex,
Speaker 4: he's like he spits out a drink, like it's almost like, oh, no,
Speaker 4: I was using you just for this one thing of
Speaker 4: like getting a bearings of reality. I don't I'm not
Speaker 4: even using you in the way you think I'm trying
Speaker 4: to use you. And he can't even control he doesn't
Speaker 4: even like that, and but that also then reaffirms he
Speaker 4: does that. He goes, I'm a good guy. I'm just
Speaker 4: using this human being as a way of getting a
Speaker 4: grip with reality. I'm not using her to have sex.
Speaker 4: That's like what bad guys do. And you're like, but
Speaker 4: she wants to have sex, he.
Speaker 3: Doesn't get it. Yeah, And it's like, by his own
Speaker 3: description of women up to this point, we know that
Speaker 3: he is judging her severely for wanting to have sex
Speaker 3: with him in spite of not knowing him very well,
Speaker 3: which is like she clearly doesn't give a shit, but
Speaker 3: it's like he's judging her for that, and yeah, he
Speaker 3: says to her, he's like, I don't want that. Like
Speaker 3: he basically says like, I'm not using you for anything,
Speaker 3: And I think he believes that scary, bone chilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, truly a conversation that I felt really like, damn,
Speaker 1: this is well written, and this is very emblematic of
Speaker 1: the type of emotional abuse that this type of guy
Speaker 1: inflicts on people. Is the scene right after they've returned
Speaker 1: from that party where she got in the pool and
Speaker 1: she says, you have all these rules and you don't
Speaker 1: tell me what they are until I've broken one, and
Speaker 1: then you get to be disappointed in me. And he
Speaker 1: says like, here are my rules. Don't fuck other men
Speaker 1: and don't let them think about fucking you. And she's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so what now I'm responsible for what other people are thinking?
Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, when you act a certain way,
Speaker 1: it leads people on. When you take off your clothes
Speaker 1: at a party, it makes people think you're a slut.
Speaker 1: And I'd prefer if you didn't do that. Is that
Speaker 1: clear enough?
Speaker 3: Were you?
Speaker 1: And it's just like Wow, everything about how he is
Speaker 1: in a relationship, his controlling, this, his possessiveness, his condescension,
Speaker 1: it's like all just right there on display in a
Speaker 1: way that felt like very authentic to how that type
Speaker 1: of abuse plays out.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, damn, yeah, well.
Speaker 4: It's also like how a guy like that uses quirkiness
Speaker 4: as like a sort of shield or whatever, which is
Speaker 4: like by sort of like being lighthearted, he doesn't have
Speaker 4: to like actually reveal what he's actually thinking the entire time, right,
Speaker 4: So it's like hypothetically this entire time he's mad at
Speaker 4: her or resents her, or it is like he creates her,
Speaker 4: and he's like you dressed. You can imagine him being
Speaker 4: like you dressed like a slud even though he described
Speaker 4: how I didn't even think of that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But then he's like finally where he's like pushed, You're like, oh,
Speaker 4: you've been all of these thoughts have been locked and loaded.
Speaker 4: And a worse movie would like somewhat like Frankenstein. It right,
Speaker 4: it's like you're my creation. But because the movie is
Speaker 4: like ridden more in defense of Frankenstein, Conder's just acting
Speaker 4: as Frankenstein would frank Stein's monster, not frank Stein and
Speaker 4: doctor Frankstein. I would just be so fascinated to have
Speaker 4: a brain of a person who was really on board
Speaker 4: with Paul Daniel's characters in the entire time, and then
Speaker 4: that happens, and does that person go, yes, she is wrong,
Speaker 4: she shouldn't sleep with that guy where that scene seems
Speaker 4: to be like, this is why a character would do this,
Speaker 4: because it's almost like, I think, what's interesting about this movie.
Speaker 4: It's like it's about human relationships, but it's also like
Speaker 4: a media critique, right, but it doesn't feel just like
Speaker 4: a media critique, and I think it all it works
Speaker 4: into all of those levels that're just sort of like, oh,
Speaker 4: what is it saying about how movies are structures and
Speaker 4: how that feeds into how people meant specifically think how
Speaker 4: gender roles are supposed to play out, right, It's like
Speaker 4: the idea of roles. It's like on multiple levels, which
Speaker 4: I think is why she's so smart and good and
Speaker 4: also built in is like I'm going to write really big,
Speaker 4: crazy parts for me and my partner to like go.
Speaker 3: Off, which is like very very cool, which.
Speaker 4: Is notable because like this is a huge breakthrough for
Speaker 4: her as an actress. Like Paul had been in stuff
Speaker 4: because he was a little missunshine, but she's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: there would be like he was a big actor and
Speaker 4: she was just sort of like bouncing around doing theater
Speaker 4: and then does this and again writes a movie way later,
Speaker 4: but like then becomes much more notable as an actress,
Speaker 4: oddly enough, almost exclusively playing romantic leads in like lighthearted
Speaker 4: indie comedies. But it also works on sort of the
Speaker 4: basic level of like I want to showcase for us
Speaker 4: to show like I'm also not just what Hollywood thinks
Speaker 4: I am when they picture me.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, I'm like excited to see I mean, i
Speaker 3: haven't seen more from her since, but like I'm excited
Speaker 3: to just keep seeing more from her because she's I
Speaker 3: mean that sort of speaks to the last thing I
Speaker 3: wanted to just like touch on she sort of talked
Speaker 3: about earlier, but just that, Like, this movie just feels
Speaker 3: very ahead of its time in a way I wasn't expecting.
Speaker 3: I watched back some of the original press tour of
Speaker 3: this and it's a lot of Zoe and Paul and
Speaker 3: Paul being asked more questions and Paul being asked There
Speaker 3: was one just like subtle stuff that like watching it
Speaker 3: ten years later in like three sixtyp you're like, ooh,
Speaker 3: do not talk to my friend that way. There's either
Speaker 3: just like switching the direction to talk to Paul Dano
Speaker 3: about something when they're there, to talk about the movie
Speaker 3: that she wrote, and start in and then also just
Speaker 3: like little stuff that like, oh, I think this may
Speaker 3: have happened to me before, where it's like a scene
Speaker 3: that Zoe Kazan has written, and there she's asked more
Speaker 3: than once, like how much improv happened in that scene,
Speaker 3: as if it was unbelievable that she could have written
Speaker 3: a well constructed scene. It just made my blood boil.
Speaker 4: She went to Yale for playwright.
Speaker 3: Like she wrote it, Dude, it doesn't sound improvise whatsoever.
Speaker 3: And then I just wanted to share the lead on
Speaker 3: this glowing New York Times review of this movie from
Speaker 3: twenty twelve, it's the critics pick by Stephen Holden, who
Speaker 3: hasn't entertained a fantasy of romantic omnipotence in which a
Speaker 3: dream partner complies with your every wish in the language
Speaker 3: of my fair lady. Oh, wouldn't it be loverly? But wait?
Speaker 3: Would unquestioning obedience really answer your deepest longings? Or would
Speaker 3: it rob you of the thrill of the chase? Might
Speaker 3: playing puppet master awaken inner demons that drive you to
Speaker 3: behave monstrously? Ruby Sparks is an ingenious and delightful variation
Speaker 3: on the Pygmalion myth toy is whimsically with these questions.
Speaker 3: As the initially perfect relationship between an author and has
Speaker 3: sprung to life, creation goes through changes. That's how a
Speaker 3: positive review of this movie would go.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve.
Speaker 3: Ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Brudal Well, I'll contrast that with a few quotes from
Speaker 1: Zoe Kazan just to kind of like contextualize where she
Speaker 1: coming from and like how the development of this movie
Speaker 1: went and where the idea came from. I guess she
Speaker 1: was inspired because she was like going home one night
Speaker 1: and saw a discarded mannequin that she thought was a body,
Speaker 1: and she was like, oh no, and then she realized
Speaker 1: it was a mannequin. But she's like, what if, like
Speaker 1: there was this like discard like just like a I
Speaker 1: don't even know actually how I don't know how that
Speaker 1: turned into this idea. But she was also inspired by
Speaker 1: the myth of Pigmalion, and then she started writing a
Speaker 1: chunk of the script and then she realized the thing
Speaker 1: that she wanted to explore with this is the kind
Speaker 1: of idea of love versus the actuality of it. And
Speaker 1: she has a few quotes that I want to share
Speaker 1: I'll paraphrase this first part where she describes how you
Speaker 1: know her mom is a feminist and she was raised
Speaker 1: with feminist thinking, and her parents had a kind of
Speaker 1: non traditional relationship where traditional gender roles weren't that observed,
Speaker 1: and she says, quote, but with my first relationships, I've
Speaker 1: found myself being expected to behave in an almost subservient way.
Speaker 1: It was shocking. I couldn't believe how traditional the roles
Speaker 1: are for so many people. My girlfriends would sometimes say
Speaker 1: to me, God, you're so lucky, he loves you so much,
Speaker 1: and I would think to myself, I'm so lonely. I
Speaker 1: feel like a doll unquote. And I feel like that
Speaker 1: informs like a lot of what this story is about.
Speaker 1: She also says, quote, I haven't seen a lot of
Speaker 1: things from that perspective, that idea of being gazed at,
Speaker 1: but never seen that moment when you think I am
Speaker 1: so strong and so brave inside and you're treating me
Speaker 1: like a baby. So I wanted to explore that in
Speaker 1: a way that wasn't unkind or alienating for men, because
Speaker 1: I love men unquote, and maybe like that almost makes
Speaker 1: men are awesome. She says, huge move for Jesse. And
Speaker 1: it also makes me wonder like was that a studio
Speaker 1: note at the end, or is she saying like men
Speaker 1: do reserve redemption sometimes I don't know, it's we don't
Speaker 1: know either way.
Speaker 3: I would just be interested to hear her talk about
Speaker 3: this movie. Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the final thing I want to share from her
Speaker 1: is she says, quote, I'm very girly. I've been girly
Speaker 1: since day one, but being girly led to relationships where
Speaker 1: the guy has a very strong idea of me. But
Speaker 1: it's an idea that it's only appropriate for adult. Just
Speaker 1: because I'm girly doesn't mean I'm a lost little girl.
Speaker 1: I hate that you're either a little lost girl, or
Speaker 1: you're a bitch who doesn't need men, or you're a
Speaker 1: nurturing motherly type. I have all of those things inside me.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't unquote, And so just like this collection of
Speaker 1: quotes is I think like very informative for like what
Speaker 1: her and just were with this movie. And we talk
Speaker 1: about this a lot, especially that last quote as far
Speaker 1: as like, oh, hyper femininity has been kind of criticized
Speaker 1: by many different types of people, but including feminists, because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, you're just like succumbing to this
Speaker 1: expectation of what a woman.
Speaker 3: Would be guilty of it early in the show.
Speaker 1: I've definitely done it throughout my life. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: like this. She's like, no, like just because I'm this
Speaker 1: way doesn't mean that I'm not also other things and
Speaker 1: that I'm not complicated and that I am not a feminist.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just I liked those quotes and I
Speaker 1: liked where she was coming from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was around these times. There was like I
Speaker 4: don't remember when New Girl started, but I feel like
Speaker 4: New Girl was partly also like the debate about like
Speaker 4: the idea of Zoe Deschanel, because like people were like
Speaker 4: making fun of like hello Giggles type people people were yeah,
Speaker 4: and that was so she was like on the front
Speaker 4: line of like quirky people can also have depth or whatever.
Speaker 4: Now like that it's not like the number one thing
Speaker 4: this movie is about, but it is somewhat defense of like,
Speaker 4: you know, quirky people are complicated. They just sort of
Speaker 4: manifest those complications with different ways.
Speaker 1: But on the Calvin character, as he's like listing off
Speaker 1: the traits of the Ruby Sparks character, he says something
Speaker 1: like she's complicated and that's what I like about her. Well,
Speaker 1: it's first of all, you did not develop her to
Speaker 1: be complicated. She just became complicated because she materialized as
Speaker 1: a human in the world. And secondly, you don't like
Speaker 1: that about her. You do not like this she's complicated.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you just like that. She's like a Zoeka's hand type.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like character actors who appear in round cons a lot.
Speaker 3: She's been typed a lot over the years too. And
Speaker 3: I think it is interesting to like look at hers
Speaker 3: and Paul Dano's career alongside each other because they've been
Speaker 3: together for so long, and it's like they're both tremendously
Speaker 3: talented actors, and it's like he easily gets more opportunities
Speaker 3: to show range and to try shit out, and he's
Speaker 3: still a type Like you're not casting Paul Dano for
Speaker 3: certain kinds of roles.
Speaker 1: But like he's not the Terminator, but he is.
Speaker 3: The Riddler, right, And it's like Zoe Kzan doesn't get
Speaker 3: those kinds of opportunity or at least that I know of.
Speaker 4: No, she gets to play a journalist in a movie, right,
Speaker 4: It's like she's she said, and like it's her and
Speaker 4: Carrie Mulligan which are both Zoe kzan Cary Mulligan types,
Speaker 4: and it's the only reason they get to both be
Speaker 4: in a movie. It's because it's about two journalists. Like,
Speaker 4: she doesn't get to play the villain in a Batman movie,
Speaker 4: which would be like imagine she played Poison Ivy. It's
Speaker 4: the weirdest take on that characters be cool.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because it seems like she's like interacting
Speaker 3: with these ideas ten years before it you know, continues
Speaker 3: to happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I imagined someone informed by going on auditions
Speaker 4: and you know, it's like quirky person types and the
Speaker 4: and going into auditions and everyone is like a different
Speaker 4: version of regards of how manic they are Pixie in
Speaker 4: some capacity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, I was just distracted by my thought of,
Speaker 1: you know, who does get to be a Batman villain,
Speaker 1: Zoe Kravit.
Speaker 3: There can only be one nepotism Zoe in the Batman universe,
Speaker 3: Zoe k Yeah. Oh wow wow Yeah continues. Does this
Speaker 3: movie pass the Maxels test? I don't think it does.
Speaker 3: I don't think it does. I don't think so. That's
Speaker 3: a bummer. Yeah, I could see that being a creative
Speaker 3: choice because I would be really surprised if Zoe Xan
Speaker 3: was not aware of this metric, just based on what
Speaker 3: I know about her. Maybe that's not true, but I
Speaker 3: do think that it would probably be true. But I
Speaker 3: don't think that the movie. I don't know. I still
Speaker 3: think it's a fantastic movie that has a lot to
Speaker 3: say about Jinda, But I don't think that the movie
Speaker 3: would be harmed by and I think in some ways
Speaker 3: in my brain version of this movie, it could be
Speaker 3: helped along in an interesting way by giving Zoe a
Speaker 3: woman in the real world to have some sort of
Speaker 3: like or just watch Zoe observe other people's relationships and
Speaker 3: talked to someone about it. Like it just feels like
Speaker 3: because we do see her being active as she gains
Speaker 3: autonomy without even realizing that that's what's happening. But it
Speaker 3: would have been cool to see her talk to people
Speaker 3: instead of just reacting to Calvin. So I feel like
Speaker 3: this would be stronger if she talked to more women.
Speaker 1: There could be even be a scene where like she
Speaker 1: either becomes friends with Susie or has like a girlfriend
Speaker 1: from her acting class or something like that, and they
Speaker 1: talk about Calvin's shitty behavior.
Speaker 3: And where she sees a woman being treated worse than
Speaker 3: she is and like how does she feel about that?
Speaker 1: Or like right, right, right, And then if Ruby calls
Speaker 1: him out on his behavior, then he would probably just
Speaker 1: write another sentence on his manuscript of like Ruby has
Speaker 1: an intense distrust of other women because women are petty
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, intentionally keeping her from other women would have been
Speaker 3: an interesting choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Seems like because both like intentionally the movie was like
Speaker 4: I have to follow the beats of male protagonist hero movie,
Speaker 4: even if he're subverting it. Yeah, right, I think, which
Speaker 4: I talked about last time, which is like sometimes if
Speaker 4: you do the strictest version of like Hero's Journey, it's like, well,
Speaker 4: there's no room for anyone else. But also I imagine
Speaker 4: it's also, as we said, there's so little cast, there's
Speaker 4: so few speaking roles. That's why it was like it
Speaker 4: has to be the mother because there's only so much
Speaker 4: budget for her, Like all the people in her class
Speaker 4: have to be extra. She couldn't be like not some
Speaker 4: good painting, right, we can't even see her painting class.
Speaker 3: No, we don't know if she's any good, which does
Speaker 3: feel like a creative twice. I don't think he cares.
Speaker 3: It's not like her paintings are hanging up, which also
Speaker 3: is like, yeah, he just doesn't give it. He just
Speaker 3: wants her to do a romantic sounding thing. He doesn't
Speaker 3: want to look at it.
Speaker 4: No, he prefers that she's good at cooking, right.
Speaker 1: Right, although I think we see some of her illustrations
Speaker 1: and paintings like in the bedroom.
Speaker 4: Yeah it's paintings of him, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's literally paintings of him, yes, yeah, but again
Speaker 1: he wrote her that way or something. I don't know anyway,
Speaker 1: Nipple Skill our scale of zero to find the rector
Speaker 1: Jesse based how the movie fares from an intersectional feminist lens,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna give this a three and a half.
Speaker 1: I'm docking it for the ending, which is a little
Speaker 1: too sugary and Hollywood e and maybe it was a
Speaker 1: studio note or not, We're not sure. But basically, the
Speaker 1: Calvin character gets a redemption that I don't think he
Speaker 1: has earned at this point, and I don't like that
Speaker 1: he's like presented with what seems to be an opportunity
Speaker 1: to like reconnect with her and like have a second chance.
Speaker 1: And again I don't not to say that people don't
Speaker 1: deserve a redemption. It's a case by case scenario. But
Speaker 1: this person doesn't this person at this time, this character
Speaker 1: does not because he has not earned it at this time.
Speaker 1: So I did not like how the movie concludes. But
Speaker 1: everything up until that point, for the most part, I thought,
Speaker 1: was like a really interesting characterization of men's expectations of
Speaker 1: like what a hetero romance with a woman should be
Speaker 1: or not, you know, hashtag not all men, but like
Speaker 1: a very kind of in general or like, you know,
Speaker 1: under patriarchy. This is how a lot of men feel
Speaker 1: and how they operate and how they behave and what
Speaker 1: their conduct is like in these types of relationships, and
Speaker 1: it still happens. We're not past it yet. So I
Speaker 1: thought it was a really interesting exploration of all of that.
Speaker 1: But also it's a very such a white movie, and
Speaker 1: it's like we're in Los Angeles and what do we why? Anyway,
Speaker 1: three and a half nipples, maybe even four, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Let's go three point seventy five, and I'll give one
Speaker 1: to Zoe Kazan. I'll give one to the actor who
Speaker 1: plays Susie, which is Tony Trucks. I will give one
Speaker 1: to Annette Benning, and I'll give my three quarters nipple
Speaker 1: to Scottie the Dog and specifically the piss on male
Speaker 1: Calvin's bed.
Speaker 3: I had a similar fruitless battle between three point five
Speaker 3: and four, so I'll do the same three point seventy five.
Speaker 3: I think that this movie is pretty fucking amazing. I
Speaker 3: do appreciate and want to shout out the fact that
Speaker 3: it is co directed by a woman, Valerie Ferris of
Speaker 3: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris who previously did Little Miss Sunshine.
Speaker 3: It is written by Zoe exam Like. I think it's
Speaker 3: very very rare, even in this subgenre of like good
Speaker 3: movies that address this trope, to have a woman involved
Speaker 3: at the highest level, which is interesting, and so I'm
Speaker 3: actually giving it four because I just changed my mind.
Speaker 3: I do, however, think that like this entire subgenre also
Speaker 3: does take place in upper class white families with I
Speaker 3: don't think any exception which does feel worth examining. Yes,
Speaker 3: especially because you're saying we're in LA like, it's ridiculous
Speaker 3: to have Antonio banderaz In essentially a glorified cameo role
Speaker 3: alias katt In essentially a glorified cameo role and Susie
Speaker 3: truly not involved in any meaningful way, so I am
Speaker 3: critical of that. I don't like the ending, obviously, but
Speaker 3: the majority of the movie. I think this movie is
Speaker 3: so ahead of its time. I think is really good
Speaker 3: and it made me want to watch more. Zoe exam
Speaker 3: by ZOEA Kasan because I don't want to watch she
Speaker 3: said again, unfortunately, not because I'm a misogynist, because it
Speaker 3: was boring and I do want all the president's men
Speaker 3: with women journalists. But that was not it. And that's
Speaker 3: the rude thing I'm saying at the end.
Speaker 1: For no reason, Jamie. I can't believe that you, my creation,
Speaker 1: would say something like that. So I type something you
Speaker 1: said on my typewriter, the.
Speaker 3: Best reporting of our time, and it was like being
Speaker 3: a mother is hard, and you're like, oh my god. Anyways,
Speaker 3: we're talking about the movie Ruby Sparks, which I'm giving
Speaker 3: four nipples to right now. I am giving one to Susie,
Speaker 3: I'm giving one to Ruby Sparks herself, I'm giving one
Speaker 3: to Alias Chacott, and I am giving one to you.
Speaker 3: Think I'm gonna give it to Emmanette Benning, I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm giving it to Christmasina because I had a great
Speaker 3: time watching them.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a guy who likes sports and can read talk
Speaker 3: about there's there's a lot being subverted in this movie.
Speaker 3: I'm kidding. Uh huh, I'm going to a hockey game tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Wow incredible, Jesse, what say you?
Speaker 4: I will also give it four nipples. I have a
Speaker 4: bad memory, but I've decided to retcon my brain to
Speaker 4: be like this movie changed my life and maybe because
Speaker 4: the flaws in my own ways, like how I approach relationships.
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's true, but it seems around
Speaker 4: the time where I was like starting to get better
Speaker 4: at understanding people or people or whatever. Like I also think,
Speaker 4: you know, like I never said friend zone, probably, but
Speaker 4: I maybe did, you know, Like I was raised in
Speaker 4: this culture and I had to learn, and I think
Speaker 4: this movie was formative and like helping. I think Five
Speaker 4: Hundred Days of Summer is somewhat also about how a
Speaker 4: certain type of guy creates an idea of a woman
Speaker 4: and then realizes like, oh, maybe I'm creating idea. I
Speaker 4: don't love her, I love the idea of where, but
Speaker 4: kind of really lets that person off the hook. And
Speaker 4: this movie, like really makes you sit with how grotesque
Speaker 4: it can look. And like that scene where it's that
Speaker 4: scene that we talked about being really tough to watch,
Speaker 4: like forces you to like confront that like this is
Speaker 4: the worst it possible can be. And I think that's
Speaker 4: really impressive. But as we said, it's like it is
Speaker 4: a narrow world. So and then I will give these
Speaker 4: nipples too. One for Zoe Kazan the writer. One for
Speaker 4: Zoe Kazan the actress because while doing the script, she
Speaker 4: also found a way to show all different types of
Speaker 4: moves she can do and like that's the benefit of
Speaker 4: Nepo Baby, and he's like, well, I'm gonna write this movie,
Speaker 4: I must have like showcased different things.
Speaker 3: Speaks French, yeah yeah, which is a very Kazan thing
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 4: One for Paul Dano for reading the script being like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we should do this, me and you.
Speaker 3: What's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 1: They're still together as far as like, oh.
Speaker 3: They got two kids.
Speaker 4: I see Paul Dano around with.
Speaker 3: One of Melissa Lozada will have a multiple time guests
Speaker 3: of the show. I met him at a coffee shop
Speaker 3: once and had a full on It wasn't a romcom moment,
Speaker 3: but he was just like, what book are you reading?
Speaker 3: And She's like, and I thought I was gonna pass out.
Speaker 4: The first time I talked to Zoe, we talked about books.
Speaker 4: I can't remember why.
Speaker 1: A couple who reads books are so pervasive, so important.
Speaker 4: They are real Brooklyn parents and actors through and through.
Speaker 4: And then I have one more nipple and it will
Speaker 4: go to Valerie Ferris and Jonathan Dayton for remind me
Speaker 4: what twenty twelve was like and having a soundtrack that
Speaker 4: was not souf fun Stevens but sounded like the mood
Speaker 4: board was like, well soup on Stevens like, and I
Speaker 4: missed that. So kudos to them for this being the
Speaker 4: first project they did after that movie.
Speaker 1: Nice Jesse, thank you so much for joining us. Thank
Speaker 1: us about your book before you go.
Speaker 3: Geez oh.
Speaker 4: Books are so important.
Speaker 3: We just important. And Zoe Kazan read them.
Speaker 4: If I see them on the street, I gotta give
Speaker 4: him a copy. The book is called Comedy Book. It's
Speaker 4: a book about comedy functions as an art form and
Speaker 4: as part of our culture. It's no it's like a heady,
Speaker 4: big book about the last forty years or so of
Speaker 4: comedy most related to our topic of conversation is I
Speaker 4: talk about context in satire and is it better for
Speaker 4: satire to be really heavy handed allah Black Mirror or
Speaker 4: for it to be something like this where people might
Speaker 4: get confused. I don't pick a side, but it's an
Speaker 4: easter egg. I ultimately would prefer something like this then
Speaker 4: to Black Mirror. Yeah, and it's a bookstores. I'm doing
Speaker 4: comedy shows for it. One in New York on November seventh,
Speaker 4: one in LA on November thirteenth. Go to those please.
Speaker 3: It's a wonderful book. I'm like, I'm enjoying it so much.
Speaker 3: It's been my Sunday book. It's been keeping me company. Yes.
Speaker 1: Is there anything social media as you'd like to?
Speaker 4: Oh my name on all of them. I'm going to
Speaker 4: leave or x after the book comes out, but until then,
Speaker 4: if this is before that, I'm so on Twitter, but
Speaker 4: not Instagram's where I use just to promote things cool
Speaker 4: and post Simpson's screenshots.
Speaker 1: That's work that's important, and you follow us also mostly
Speaker 1: on Instagram. At Bechdel Cast, you can subscribe to our
Speaker 1: Patreon at patreon dot com, slash Bechdel Cast and become
Speaker 1: a matron where We do two bonus episodes every month,
Speaker 1: plus access to the back catalog of around one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty bonus episodes, all for five dollars a month.
Speaker 3: If you want more episodes on our Matreon about someone
Speaker 3: being controlled, we did three episodes about Pinocchio so that
Speaker 3: you can you can go check that out. You can
Speaker 3: get our mergencypublic dot com slash the Bechdel Cast, and
Speaker 3: with that, let's go to a park and meet all
Speaker 3: over and groundhog Day the worst relationship ever.
Speaker 1: Okay, bye bye bye by