The Bechdel Cast - Ruby Sparks with Jesse David Fox

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

On this episode, Jamie and Caitlin write special guest Jesse David Fox into existence so they can all discuss Ruby Sparks! (This episode contains spoilers) For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast Follow @jessedavidfox on Instagram.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project.

All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister? Or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, They're just dreams. Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdelcast. Hey, Jamie. Hey, Caitlin.

I have a secret. What? I wrote a story about a character named Jamie Loftus. And then we were like hosting a podcast together in my story. And then suddenly. Bonjour. Bonjour. Bonjour. Wow.

You're real. Wait, Jessie, can you see Jamie? Oh, wow. You're really real. Je t'aime, Caitlyn. Oh, je t'aime caitlin oh je t'aime you too bark bark anyway hi wow i panicked because i was like i i know the bit i want to do but i don't have the skills i can't i'm ill-equipped but execute the bit. But I wrote that you're fluent in French. Oui! Anyway, hi.

This is the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus, and I'm controlled by Caitlin Durante. Sorry about it. I frequently find that everything in my life changes. I have friends. I lose them. I'm on all fours barking like a dog.

I'm calling Caitlin a genius nonstop. Yeah, thank you. It's honestly kind of an incredible way to live. You know, the surrender of free will has its drawbacks. But you know, she does let me go to sleep sometimes. You're welcome. Thank you. You're a genius. Yes, I know. Anyway, this is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional

feminist lens using the Bechdel test simply as a jumping off point. But Jamie, my creation, we what is it? Well, the Bechdel test is a media metric created originally by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, often called the Bechdel-Wallace test. A lot of versions of the test. The version we use is this one. We require that there be two characters of a marginalized gender with names talking to each other about something other than a man for more than two lines of dialogue in some sort of meaningful way.

Can't really be more specific than that uh you know it when you see it so those are sort of our requirements god this is like such an interesting movie to talk about in regards to the Bechdel test because I feel like this movie came out in a stretch of time where the Bechdel test was also frequently discussed often in a way that I feel like it is no longer discussed now in a good way. I'm excited to talk about this movie. Same. And we have a returning guest. We sure do. Our guest is the senior editor at Vulture. He's the host of Good One podcast,

and his book entitled Comedy Book is out on November 7th. It's Jesse David Fox. Welcome back. I was trying to think if I knew any words in French, and I don't. Bonjour. Bonjour, that's the word. And a happy bonjour to you. And a happy bonjour.

Congratulations on the book. Oh, thank you so much. Congratulations on your book. Thank you. I was baiting you. I made Jamie write that book. Isn't that incredible? Congratulations.

You wrote every word for her to sit down to type. To rewrite. Yes. You're welcome. Again. Caitlin did not want to eat a hot dog. And so they went really like 4D chess to find a way to get the book written. Welcome back.

I realized as we were preparing for this episode because we're covering ruby sparks 2012 yeah that on your first episode we also kind of did not a similar plot but we did her with you years and years ago and it's yet another movie about a man that uh a writer creating a consciousness that he can control as a way of getting over an ex-girlfriend that also was a failure because he tried to control that relationship. Yeah. Like he's the sort of guy, I mean, I guess that they're still out there. I've met them. They're still around.

They're kind of an unkillable mutant species. But it is interesting that these two movies, yeah, they're a guy that's like, I couldn't be a bad person. I'm shy. Yeah. You're like, okay. It was the cultural zenith of that guy as hero. That's shorthand for somewhat redeemable because it's this type of guy. Now, this movie, I think, not to get ahead of it, I'm trying to remember if watching this movie helped me get over that part of myself that also thought that about like me that's like well i'm quiet

so i guess i'm nice or did this movie reinforce that feeling in me i'm really excited to talk to you about that because this movie is now 11 years old and it's like we would have covered this movie very differently when this show started seven years ago. Yeah, for sure. And by differently, I mean worse. Because you grow in all that stuff. I'm so excited to talk about this movie. I was pleasantly surprised by how much it broke my brain.

But Jesse, what is your history with this film? I didn't see it in theaters, but I do believe I saw it soon after. But I can't totally remember when. But I do feel like this type of movie, like Fox Searchlight, rom-com adjacent or whatever, was like my favorite type of movie. Like Zoe Kazan starring movies. Directors of Little Miss Sunshine, you're like yes i'm listening i'm listening yes all of this was like exactly my aesthetic so i i know i saw it i assume like once it was on was streaming around that i don't know how i saw it but i know i saw it and then on demand or something disgusting and then i was like i had a memory of the discourse around this

and zoe's sort of relationship to the term manic pixie dream girl. I remember reading an interview. She said X. And then I realized, oh, that was an interview I did with her where I asked her about like now how she feels. Because the creator of the term manic pixie dream girl regretted it. And then she was sort of the champion of how maybe the term, unlike the Bechdel test, was sort of like sloppily applied at the time. Yes. And that's like, I totally agree.

I mean, you can't tell someone how to, you know, deal with their own word that they made popular. And like Nathan Rabin is amazing. But it did feel like retracting it entirely was an overcorrection. It was just like, no no it's a thing but just like not in every single case that someone says it is right yes right it became a way to fairly quickly disregard female performances and female characters so much so then if you then reject it you're like well then are we then we forgot the first point was to criticize a type of female character that this movie also was trying to criticize exactly and then now we're back to partly the aesthetics of this character doesn't exist in the same way

anymore because like it was so associated with like certain types of haircuts and clothes my opinion right she's got the bangs she's got the little cap sleeve dresses you're like yep yep we were there we saw it yeah so because fewer people have bangs i don't know like i don't know gen z's relationship to this idea yeah and it seems like it if anything it has like it's ripe for a resurgence right it is like not so removed from like girl dinner or whatever. Right. I think that this can like exist in conversation with, I don't know, like whatever. Every generation thinks that they've solved things and reinvented the wheel and they never have and they never will. And that's just sort of my view on the state of things.

And yeah, it's like Gen Z has their version of these tropes too that will also be embarrassing to look back on 10 years from now. I was thinking of Girl Dinner, Girl Math, Girl – which is like something that I've sort of let fly at different points as well. When there's that Chris Messina line of like, you haven't written a woman, you've written a girl. And I'm like, and what do you mean by that, Chris Messina? What are you saying? Which side do you then take by you know what are you saying which side do you then take by saying that i am switzerland i think let the girls do what they want let the girls do what they want that character makes some like very good points and then he makes some very bad points

throughout the movie he's very inconsistent i mean but that's kind of what i appreciated about him i'm like that seems like a guy that exists in the world where he's like I love my wife so much but I would change her if I could and you're like yeah he is a similar you know in so much as this movie's in conversation with like 500 days of summer he like is very much in the same ilk as like the dudeier the more dude characters of that movie yeah he was like this version in that movie they're both bro-ier than the lead but also like the conscience of the movie because in that movie it's like i would give my wife bigger tits if i could but in retrospect it wouldn't change anything right but i love that broad you're like yeah the chad conscience of

the film so it is interesting to be like is everything this character says ultimately the person we should be supporting there is yeah because that line is the like philosophical thesis i guess of the movie i mean yeah way more so than anything calvin ever says or does for sure i didn't make that connection i also i mean this movie feels very much a cousin to 500 days of summer i haven't seen 500 days of summer recently but it is yeah i mean i haven't really revisited it but i was at ikea with a man recently and was like wow is something bad about to happen to me? Did you run around? No, I very intentionally stayed still.

As someone with a critical history of behavior, I tried to really stay as still as possible and really stay the path and get the plates I had come there for. Another similarity that this movie had with 500 Days of Summer is that I hate the last scene. Yeah. Well, it's a hate the last scene. Yeah. Well, it's a very similar last scene. Yeah.

Very similar. Yes. Oh, I can't wait to talk about the ending of this movie and the rest of it. All right, Jamie, what is your relationship with this movie, Ruby Sparks? I had not seen this movie and I didn't know a lot about it.

I think that we were all there in the 2010s manic pixie dream girl mess of a attempt to have a conversation you know which we were a part of and like i just never got to this movie because based off of like what i was catching from this conversation it seemed like to me it was framed as a movie that was perpetrating these tropes as opposed to criticizing and interacting with them. And I think that that just stuck in my head. And also, to be fair, the marketing does not really do much to change your mind. I went back and watched the trailer, as well as the original reviews of this movie,

which I'm like, Zoe Kazan kind of playing a game of 4D chess there, because it's like everyone received this as like a quirky what was the god the atlantic review ruby sparks a charming tale of boy makes girl and you're like uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh did they see the scene where he made her bark like a dog and call him a genius apparently they didn't um but yeah i had avoided this movie because i thought it was a perpetrator and not a. And I was really pleasantly surprised by this movie. I really enjoyed it.

I mean, there's stuff about it that I would just love a rundown of what the studio notes were for this movie, because I feel like that last scene doesn't feel consistent with what is happening. Even 10 minutes before. And I think Zoe Kazan is a terrific writer. And so I'm like, I just don't think she would do that. But there's a lot of cool stuff in this movie that I feel like I haven't seen done quite this well in other places. I liked it. Yeah. Caitlin, what's your history? I also had never seen it. And I think I had a very similar experience as you, Jamie, as far as like, people would talk about it all the time in a pretty critical way. And either I misunderstood what they were criticizing, or the people who were criticizing it misunderstood what the movie was right either way i also thought it was like

wow a classic example of a manic pixie dream girl presented uncritically right and isn't that awesome and so i also was just like i don't really feel compelled to watch this or again i might have been misunderstanding what people were saying about it either way i'd never seen it and so when i was watching it, I was like, wait a minute, the things I thought about this movie don't seem to be the things that are actually here in this movie. So I found it refreshing in some ways. I found it challenging. I was like, wow, hang on. And I think I'm gonna like be processing a lot of my thoughts about this movie in real time on this episode but i was pleasantly surprised by it especially going in with like

pretty low expectations based on the buzz i do feel like if the ending was fudged with a bit it would like do really well coming out right now yeah and also if the outfits were better well i think they were good for the time at the time they were incredible well honestly that is like truly the most dating part of my life so literally every single person i dated for like seven years dressed like that so i'm like that's the feminine ideal of like what i imagine people should dress like so i don't have a problem he dressed terribly he dressed also only in a tan and green it was like such a clear director's choice is he shaggy from scooby-doo he was serving shaggy the whole movie including on the poster but i do think the ending is even

two years later or whenever like inside amy schumer became the most popular show on television the studio notes would be like and it the exact opposite way like we want thisumer became the most popular show on television. The studio notes would be like, end it the exact opposite way. Like we want this to be the most heavy handed ending possible. Yeah, he would get hit by a 18 wheel a couple years later. Yeah. This movie, I will say, proves a theory that I was recently revisiting, or at least Zoe Kazan feels the same way because it is fiction, but that the moment someone becomes famous, they stop maturing forever,

or at least stop maturing in some ways forever. Yeah. And that's Calvin to the core. He's behaving so 19 this entire movie in spite of being 30. Yeah. Shall I do the recap? And then we'll go from there. Let's recap let's recap oh wait let's take a break first and then we'll come back

definitely caruana galizia was a maltese investigative journalist who on october 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I felt too seen. Dragged. I'm NK, and this is Basket Case. So I basically had what back in the day they would call a nervous breakdown. I was crying and I was inconsolable. It was just very big, sudden swaps of different meds. What is wrong with me? Oh, look at you giving me therapy, girl.

Finally, a show for the mentally ill girlies. On Basket Case, I talk to people about what happens when what we call mental health is shaped by the conditions of the world we live in. Because if you haven't noticed, we are experiencing some kind of conditions that are pretty hard to live with. But if you struggle to cope, the society that created the conditions in the first place will tell you there's something wrong with you. And it will call you a basket case. Listen to Basket Case every Tuesday on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, Jake Storielli here from John Boy Media. I want to tell you about my podcast, Wake and Jake. It's your go-to spot for anything and everything sports. Baseball, football, basketball, hockey, golf, college, whatever's hot in the street, we're talking about it on Waking Jake. So if you're a diehard fan or looking for the latest buzz, we've got you covered, no matter your favorite sport. We're breaking it down with the passion that'll make you feel like

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or listen to Wake and Jakeake on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back okay here is the recap we open on a silhouetted image of a woman being like, there you are. I've been looking for you. What? Why are you looking at me like that? Zoe Kazan is hee hee ha haing up a storm. Yes. I love it. And then Calvin Weirfields wakes up. That's Paulul danno he was having a dream about this woman calvin is a writer who 10 years ago wrote an acclaimed novel when he was only 19 but he since has not been able to write much of anything i found these scenes triggering i was like um relatable much? We see him sitting down trying to write, but his writer's block is very intense. So we see him instead hanging out with his dog, Scotty.

He hangs out with his brother, Harry, played by Chris Messina. Awesome. Classic. Baffling. Yeah. In what world are they brothers? And grew up seemingly in California, despite he seeming so Midwestern and him the most New York man that Hollywood would allow. Right. It's true.

I've also read in the original press tour, both Paul Dano and Chris Messina were like, we're aware we look nothing alike, but we enjoyed it. You're like, okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Okay. Okay, boys. So Calvin seems to not have much in the way of friends. He seems to struggle to meet and connect with people. He goes to a therapist, Elliot Gold. His name is Dr. Rosenthal or something, but Elliot Gold is his therapist.

He gives Calvin a little writing assignment to try to help him to start writing again. And the assignment is to write a page where someone meets Calvin's dog, Scotty, and likes the dog for who he is, despite him being skittish and slobbery. Then that night, Calvin has a dream about the same woman who we will come to know as Ruby Sparks. I think the writing in this scene is so good because she's just like challenging him in such a movie way where I watched this movie back to back twice and watching that scene go back where it's like

i would have loved that exchange if when i was in high school i'm like wow she's not like other girls she's really like giving him like she's a handful but when you watch that scene back you're like she's challenging him in the safest way possible like she's only ever allowed to challenge him in a way that is safe for him. Also, she's not like other girls. She doesn't know who F. Scott Fitzgerald is. Yeah, and he gets to tell her. For how acclaimed of an author is, the books around this movie are so, they are like a teenager's collection of books. Yeah, Catcher in the Rye, Great Gatsby, like the stuff that you read because you're supposed, you like are required to in high school.

Yeah. It really felt like James Franco novelist era, unfortunately. Which is also this time. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Anyway, so this dream woman meets and likes Scotty the dog. And then Calvin wakes up from this dream, suddenly very inspired by the woman. And he starts writing page after page about Ruby Sparks.

He has his brother, Harry, read what he's written of this manuscript so far. And Harry basically tells him that Calvin does not understand women and that he's like written a very like tropey manic pixie dream girl type and that no one is going to want to read this this chad is a literary critic he is absolutely killing it in this scene we'll get back to how his wife is treated because we are told a lot about her even though we see her one time. And she's like, why is this bra here? And you're like, good job, movie. Also, he's a sports agent but able to like read and digest a short story in like a dinner with his brother.

I actually really liked that choice. I like that it is not challenged. They're like, yeah, he's a bit of a reader when he's not managing sports is it a crime it's also like they let the how you code the actors in your brain do so much work of filling out who these people are they're like well he's a christmas cena type so obviously he's a sport agent you won't realize that until like way later in the movie but yeah but at no point yeah yeah yeah okay so despite his brother's criticism calvin continues to fantasize about and write about ruby writing this story where she and a

guy very much like himself down to like that character also being named Calvin being so in love with each other. One day, as he is about to leave home for a meeting, a woman is suddenly in Calvin's kitchen. And this woman is Ruby Sparks, played by Zoe Kazan. Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. What a most recent episode. We already brought up Shaggy. This is what I bring to the show. I mean, well, Shaggy the dog,

more like Scotty the dog, who I think is the best character in the movie because he pisses on Calvin's bed and that makes him awesome. He sees who he is. Do you think that was inspired by Calvin and Hobbes or I guess the image of oh no i guess calvin is the one that pees though so i guess it's like oh because calvin and hobbes hobbes and shaw

anyway think about it you know scotty and calvin we got there exactly the three most iconic duos of the last 30 years. Yes, yes. It's all making sense. Okay, so Ruby Sparks is in Calvin's kitchen, and she appears to be a real-life person who does not realize she is a figment of Calvin's imagination that has magically materialized, and he will not tell her that for a long time. Anyway, Calvin, he's freaking out. He thinks he's hallucinating,

that he's like, you know, losing his mind. And Ruby is just like, what's wrong, babe? Is everything okay? So Calvin then tries to sneak out of the house, but Ruby's like, where are you going? Can I come with you? So she rides along with him, but then he ditches her

because he's meeting up with this woman mabel played by alia shockett who gave him her number at a book event because she's like kind of like this groupie type who's like trying to sleep with him and he doesn't have any friends so this is like the person he called they go go out for coffee, but Ruby spots them and thinks Calvin is cheating on her. So Ruby starts to make a commotion and he figures no one else can hear or see Ruby, but everyone around him is like, yes, I can see this woman. So Ruby is real in the sense that she now exists in the world and everyone can see her and calvin is like wow i have a real life girlfriend now awesome and then we get this montage of like them being in

love they're going to a zombie film festival at the hollywood forever cemetery they're going to an arcade like attempt at the ikea scene yeah they do run through is it a video game place yeah just sort of like they're in an arcade yeah it is a pitch perfect this part of this movie is those movies and at this point you're watching a problem like oh i guess it's just like another one of those movies if you didn't know that this was making fun of that you'd just be like oh i guess we're just gonna do that and i haven't seen that for a while so involuntarily like regina specter starts playing in the back of your head and you're like no no i didn't consent to this right so then calvin tells his brother how ruby is real now and harry is like that's not possible talk to your therapist

because you've lost your mind but then cal Calvin introduces Harry to Ruby. Harry still thinks it's some kind of hoax, like maybe she's an imposter who's trying to trick Calvin. So Harry tells Calvin to write something about her. And if it comes true, then they'll know that this is real. So Calvin writes that Ruby speaks fluent French, and then suddenly, Ruby is speaking fluent French. And Harry is like, wow, this is awesome. You can make her do anything you want. You can give her huge titties. You can

change her and tweak her. This is where he's really going, leaning into the sports agent side of his character. Now the sympathetic brother is like, you need more therapy. But now he's like, well, now that I know you're okay, immediately my second don't give blow jobs after a couple of months that that scene i mean it's a low for that character but again very rewatchable scene

where it calvin is like i wouldn't change a hair on ruby's head she's amazing i love her can i ask since i've seen this before, so I knew where it was going. At that moment, were you both still being like, maybe fuck this movie? Like, maybe this movie is doing, is. I couldn't tell. Yeah. Cool. Because like rewatching it, that's the first time like my stomach starts hurting or whatever.

Or you're just like, don't do this, these people. Like, be different people already. I do know that I was still very on the fence at that point in the movie. But I think that, like, Paul Dano's performance is really good because on the second watch, I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't think I believed him the first time. The way that he says it, it's like, I think, honestly, where I was like, maybe this movie is interesting and good. Because when I saw it was written by zoe kazan okay okay promising and then when he first calls his ex-girlfriend a slut in therapy i'm like yeah maybe this movie is going to be which if you haven't seen this movie that sounds like a very bizarre comment to be like

maybe this movie rules but like it's to show the like sympathetic like tortured artist writer character and then have him say something awful early on in a way that like even in 2012 you would be like well that's an obviously cruel thing to say about someone this person lacks introspection i would guess yeah i think where i was was because we've seen him say pretty nasty things about women before this and then the way he just describes and characterizes ruby i was like oh he's a shitty person yeah and he does not respect women when he gives her the backstory oh we'll talk about it yeah yes but i was like oh i bet he is gonna try to change and manipulate ruby especially because he doesn't tell her right away that she's a figment of his imagination also

and but i wasn't sure well i wasn't sure if the movie was going to be critical of his behavior or just be like here it is isn't this quirky so at that point i wasn't sure where it was gonna go also like the language especially 2012 especially to a male audience member, you're like, yeah, that's how guys talk or whatever. Like it wouldn't even note it. Like the subtlety of it is even more subtle than where I guess guys more frequently called women sluts, not necessarily as a pejorative, but like clearly Zoe knew. Like you see it now. They're like, oh, this is actually she was giving breadcrumbs, I guess, in the first act. It's such a rewatchable movie. It's so cool where it's like yeah there are the big obvious

things where you're like oh i don't i don't like this guy but i didn't even realize all of the clues that they leave behind of like what a piece of shit he is just like in real life what a treat mr snowman i gave you all the clues or what is it mr policeman i gave you all the clues that's from the snowman was the snowman the snowman was a guy right but it was a baby was a snowman compared to our matriarch episode about truly my memory i'm like men in black mind wipes after every episode i don't know why did we i don't know why we did i don't know why we covered that but i think it was just like locked down and we're like let's do something amazing cool let's bring joy to the world okay joy to the world okay so harry is like wow you can

change her and make her do whatever you want and calvin's like, no, I'm never going to write about her again. And he locks his manuscript away in a drawer. But after some time, Calvin starts to realize that Ruby isn't this idealized version of a woman who he fictionalized, that she's a real person who has free will. She isn't at his beck and call all the time. You know, sometimes she's too tired for sex. She wants to get a job at a coffee shop so that she doesn't have to be financially dependent on him. The way that he reacts to her wanting a job by being like, look over here, this thing I just said no to, you can have it. Now shut up about getting a job. And you're like, oh no, what year is it? But that's how he treats all women and then ruby is also starting to realize that calvin is a pretty shitty boyfriend and person especially after they go to

this trip to visit calvin's mom played by annette benning and her husband antonio banderas where the whole time calvin is being just like kind of mean and he's very stubborn. He's no fun to be around. He's disrespectful. And Ruby calls him out for it. And she also tells him that she's lonely. She wants to make friends. She wants to take an art class and spend a few nights at her own apartment each week. So she's, you know, trying to establish healthy boundaries. And he does not like this. He gets more and more insecure. He cannot deal with her being her own person. He doesn't want her to have friends. And one night when she's out with her friends from her class, he takes the manuscript that he was writing about ruby he takes it back out of the drawer

and writes ruby was miserable without calvin and then he immediately gets a call from ruby saying i want to come home and then she becomes cartoonishly clingy and codependent zoe gets to do some acting some big yes it's so good in these yeah yeah yep which he starts to feel suffocated by this clinginess so then he types another sentence that ruby is filled with effervescent joy and then she becomes cartoonishly and annoyingly joyous annoying to him i think this is i think it's very cute in those scenes it's everything but the like being woken up by a baby deer kind of thing and now he's concerned that she's only happy because he wrote her to be happy but he wants to be able to make her organically happy. Valid concern. So then he writes, Ruby was just Ruby, happy or sad,

however she felt. And now it seems like she's experiencing mood swings and that she doesn't really have control over her own emotions. And he's trying to make her feel better. He's like, let's go to this book party. And they go to this party hosted by another writer played by steve coogan love that for us who tries to come on to ruby and then calvin catches them together in a swimming pool when they're in their underwear so calvin freaks out and brings her home there's a whole interaction also between calvin and his ex-girlfriend lila at this party we'll talk about that later but at home calvin is like ruby you embarrassed me you're supposed to be my girlfriend so act like it and they have this whole argument that we'll unpack later but basically

she's like you don't get to decide what i do and what i don't do. Like, I'm my own person. And he's like, you want to bet? Because I can make you do whatever I want. And she's like, um, what? This scene is brutal. Absolutely brutal. Hard to watch. Imagine writing it for yourself to do with your husband. She ruby sparks herself.

I was like, really cool, you guys. What are you doing? Yeah, really wild but calvin goes to his typewriter and there's a whole scene that plays out like a horror movie where he types a bunch of stuff and makes her do things and prevents her from doing other things such as leaving to show her that she is his creation. And she's obviously horrified and betrayed, and she's sobbing. And then when she finally has the opportunity, she runs away. And then Calvin, I guess, realizing that he shouldn't have done all that stuff, returns to his typewriter and writes, as soon as Ruby left the house, the past released her.

She was no longer Calvin's creation. She was free. And he is devastated that she's gone. But again, he is like, it was the right thing to do. And we're like, duh. And then the movie ends with Calvin turning this story that just unfolded into a new novel. The novel gets published. People read it.

They love it. And then one day, Calvin is walking Scotty the dog in the park, and Scotty runs over. It's the same scene. It's like sort of a Frankenstein of the end of Eternal Sunshine and the end of 500 days of summer yeah yeah where scotty runs over to ruby who does not recognize calvin or remember anything about their relationship since he had like released her from the past and then they start chatting and it's implied that they're going to reconnect and possibly, like, get together.

The end. Run the other way! Truly. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break, and we'll be back to discuss. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Okay. Where shall we start? Where can we start? Where can we start? I don't know. Again, I was expecting something very different based on the comments and criticism I had heard about this movie in years past and was surprised to learn that it is like to some extent an indictment of the type of like misogynist man who is not capable of a relationship with a real human woman because he projects some fantasy or ideal onto her then he resents her movie that we've covered with jesse before what a man falling in love with someone who's not a real woman yeah their idea of who they are yeah and then resents when she cannot live up to his like projection or idealized version of her and he resents that she has free will and which is is very abusive along the way the like

core of this movie is he hates that his girlfriends have free will unfortunate yes yeah sort of my main problem with the movie not philosophically but sort of well the ending is a whole other thing but like they spent so much time with him trying to prove that he's not going crazy that it then underlines the sort of like magic of it where i feel like if he accepted that she exists his actions would feel less because of the magical concept and more because of his behavior you know what i mean like it sometimes i feel like it's supposed to be ambiguous if he's making decisions because like well you, well, you can't have a job. You don't have a social security number.

You're a fake person or whatever. Yeah. But I only am thinking that because they spend so much time. And that seems like such a studio thing. Being like, no one's going to believe this. You have to have three different characters verify. Right. And I think that's partly, like, first time screenwriter getting to make a movie.

She can't be, like like nine million movies do like every single Woody Allen movie literally does this where they're just like some magical thing happens and they don't have to prove it. And I think this is all to say I do think it obscures the like, oh, I'm watching a rom-com like a magical rom-com quality to it because you're like oh it's a magical rom-com where this thing happens. I guess it's also how he's able to justify why this is a book

at the end of it. Also I feel like setting up the therapist character and then having him not included for the vast majority of the movie I'm like

he has to find out like if that's gonna be the thrust or maybe don't include that character I don't know I was confused about. I also thought he's a really well-written therapist and really well-performed.

He goes, can it be bad? He goes, I'd like for it to be very bad. I was like, everything about that scene is perfectly written. And then he's just gone. Yeah. I saw a piece in Collider a couple of years ago in 2021. I've never heard of it by Tony Oysen, which, you know, I had this thought

as I was watching and I think that this is maybe a trapping of current film criticism where you're like, this movie's actually a horror movie. Ever think about that?

But I do think that this writer kind of unpacked that pretty well and save for the ending, the movie kind of plays out that way in a way that feels mostly intentional. But I've seen this movie characterized so many different ways. I've seen it characterized in, I think, the way that we're going to be coming at it today, where this is, I think, such a well-done sort of takedown of like stock character that viewers in 2012 weren't even

prepared and like did not maybe get it i also saw it described when it came out as more of a commentary on like the beginning of a relationship versus the difficult reality of actually being with someone which i feel like is referenced more in the relationship between the brothers of like, no, she's a person and like things will not be amazing every day. And it's not going to be like a dick sucking city. That's not how a relationship works. And he's like, I'm sure. Sure, Christmasina. I'm not going to get my like anyways.

So there's that read of it as well. And I've seen Zoe Kazan speak to both parts of it. So I just want to acknowledge that, but I am more interested in what we're talking about. You're like, yeah, relationships are hard, but I feel like that would play out if the story wasn't so based in control of one over the other.

Because it's like, I think that you can have that discussion in a very like surface sense, but it only applies to this couple so far other because it's like i think that you can have that discussion in a very like surface sense but it only applies to this couple so far because it's like he is jepettoing the shit out of her the entire like she can barely participate in the relationship because of the controls that are the reason that she's even there so i don't know yeah that that read of it didn't hit for me as much. If anything, I feel like it uses that theme as a sort of, like, Trojan horse for, like, the actual, like, satirical point it's making, right? Like, I think that's essentially, like, what 500 Days of Summer is about, right? Like, in so much as 500 Days of Summer does not feel like this movie at all, even though, like, that is essentially the point of 500 Days of summer does not feel like this movie at all even though like that is essentially the point of 500 days summer is that because by the she barks like a dog part you're like oh holy

shit like that scene is shot like a horror film you can see a version of this with a different third act that become like a black mirror episode like if it's like really heavy-handed but instead it's sort of like just subtle enough that essentially I think it makes it a much more like graceful critique. But also, I guess, can make it so dumb people or people who are not prone to think. You can say my name. No, not you. Like I'm just imagining male critics being like, what an interesting rom-com, right? So it's like all Tony.

And I do think that's like always the sort of problem with satire where either like I'm going to be so heavy handed that it's so annoying. Right. Like most Black Mirror episodes or do it like this, which is like, oh, it can kind of trick certain people into being like, oh, I thought I was going to romcom. I now realize my tile understanding of dating is wrong. Right. I don't like the last scene, but I feel like if it was maybe played a little bit different, it could have that Black Mirror quality to it. And I like mileage definitely varies on that. But the idea that for whatever reason, I don't understand the magical rules of this universe that Men in Black wipes Ruby's memories the way that it does every time I press stop on my Zoom recorder. But the fact that she could be much like Clementine and Joel in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, she could be stuck in this loop of having to be with this nightmare of a person who is incapable of growth forever, question mark.

But I don't think that that's what the last scene is trying to say. I think there's a read of it that you're like, oh, she's trapped. She she's trapped and that is the ending of a horror movie that is final destination right but no i think the ending is actually like the studio being like this needs a happier more uplifting ending so let's have it so that he meets her again and now he's a redeemed man. And even though he was so abusive to her prior to this, he redeemed himself because he apologized in the book that he wrote about her. Yeah, the thing he's actively profiting from, and will buy a second house with. Good for him.

I don't understand what narrative thrust we're supposed to believe earned any sort of redemption. I'm so glad narrative thrust is catching on. Caitlin's really been getting into the word thrust recently. And just even the tacit support of it makes me physically ill. No, I agree. And I think that like a different version of this, again, it's like the two movies that it feels like that last scene are influenced by it's not completely dissimilar from the end of eternal sunshine except you do get the clear feeling from eternal sunshine that their relationship will fail again and it will fail for the same reasons and they are agreeing

that they're gonna do it anyways where it's like ruby again she is just like she has no autonomy she has none of the information and so she is like doomed to be because it's like what is he going to do in this happy version ending is he going to not tell her again yeah exactly it seems like it's about to happen he won't no yeah that's a fix for now i'm like if he literally if the movie cuts with him being like i have to tell you something then that's interesting oh i kind of like yeah very little would have to change and then you're like oh this was kind of a horror because i i think calvin is a really i mean he's despicable he's the worst but he's a really interesting like well-written character where he like is saying stuff at the beginning of the movie like he has that line girls aren't interested in me they're interested in some idea of me which is basically

identical to something clementine says in eternal sunshine and he does mean that he is worried about it seems like part of the reason he's reclusive is because he's insecure about his work obviously based on his past relationship and he's worried about being i guess in he feels the reason he's not in a relationship is because he's afraid that they will want mr cool literary guy and not who he actually is problem being he has no idea who he actually is and has no interest well that and it's like i think this movie is like kind of commenting on the hypocrisy of this exactly because ruby says that exact thing later right his concern is i want someone who wants me for me not some idea of me and then all he wants is his idea of what a girlfriend should be yeah

which is like i just think it's so well because i didn't catch that on the i mean you can't really if you don't know what's going to happen, that line feels kind of innocuous in the first viewing. But on the second viewing, you're like, damn, she's good. She got my ass good. And that scene is doubled down on when his relationship with Lila is clarified at that party. Being as vague as possible.

I have a friend who went through something like that not too long ago, where everyone's version of their breakup is going to be different and never completely objectively accurate. Impossible to have an objective experience of that. But similar to how Calvin chose the element of the breakup that was painful for him, because of course, getting broken up with after your parent has recently died would be painful for anyone that's disorienting but chooses the one thing that requires no self examination on his part to blame the entire failure of the relationship removing context of years of when his father was alive and he was a piece of shit and i don't know i mean i think that that is like a pretty common thing that you see in breakups that doesn't really know a gender in how it's perpetrated but i see men do it a lot

yeah and i really liked that inclusion of that scene with him and lila at the party toward the end of the movie because again the only context we have up until that point was she broke up with him shortly after his father died. He calls her a heartless slut. She, I think, was his only past relationship. They were together for five years. Other than that, we don't know anything. And then we get her side of the story. And I'm like fully on board with, I'm like, yes, I believe everything you're saying, Lila.

And she also acknowledges that it hurt that she chose the moment to break up with him that she did but also that that doesn't mean that she was wrong or needs to regret it and like right having that full messiness acknowledged and also it's so clear that like yeah he couldn't love her for who she is and when she started to want things outside of their relationship he couldn't handle it he couldn't handle it he couldn't handle that she was also an aspiring novelist like he felt very threatened by that progress right he begrudgingly helped her in her career but again he just like didn't want her to be more successful than him or anything like that yeah she says like you weren't curious

about me you just had this image of who i was and anything i did that contradicted it you just ignored and this is exactly what he does to ruby and we're like yeah okay mr pattern of behavior wow god is ass caitlin i also think i mean part of the reason i think the character works and that you allow yourself to sort of be surprised or tricked or whatever by the movie is that like zoe seems empathetic to like writers and this character as a writer and i do think it's from a few things one it's like our parents are famously writers she comes from a very famous i mean nepo baby all the way all the ways down nepo baby but also like she is dealing with like how she is perceived in hollywood or whatever like she understands that she grew up in hollywood so she knows different types of people and i do think there's a deep understanding of this person's

psychology that's not just like a sensitive misogynist it's just like a cartoon villain you're just like they're never heard that turn of phrase before what a scary phrase but just like clearly she's like oh i know how the wheels of this person's brain work to make them the victim of all situations and like how good they are it's almost like because these people are writers their ability to create the other person in relationships is like heightened. And because the characters are written as writers, it makes sense as well. You're like, well, like it makes sense that he would make up fake people in real relationships and fake relationships. He's a writer.

That's what he does. And I think that allows it to not just be, you know, a Black Mirror episode or whatever. It's like it's just an idea of a person and you just project nothing that's honest like paul dano is not a blank vessel he's like a very specifically written person she wrote it for him and also like cool of paul dano to like take that on and i think like do it really thoughtfully i can't imagine shooting that scene with someone i'd been in a relationship with for five years but then i can't imagine shooting that scene with someone I'd been in a relationship with for five years. But then I can't imagine being in a relationship for five years. So it's complicated.

Yeah, there are other parts of the second. If you watch this movie, unfortunately, you do have to watch it again soon after because it is just like a very rewarding rewatch. another element of his character that resonated for me and felt familiar perhaps was that Calvin has this very juvenile, again, just like the amount of guardrails that this guy has set up to resist any introspection or self-reflection. It's like the corn maze in science like it's unbelievable how he's done this and he has this you know core belief that like women don't like him he also has a very clear idea of what constitutes a bad guy and a bad partner and he repeats it over and over in a way that is like it reminds me of like tropes we've talked about in the past, Caitlin, where it's like patriarchy the guy, where you're just like the most, like he's like kicks the door down, pulls someone's hair and is like,

I don't think women should vote. And then any other man in the room, because this guy has behaved so terribly, is given like narrative impunity to act in more subtly misogynistic ways because there is this blowhard. And the way that he describes, I mean, the two things that stick out to me is like the scene where he's imagining Ruby before she crosses into the real world where she's like,

I usually date guys that are kind of like shitty to me. And then he says, why would you date a guy like that? Which is always what the guy who is about to do that says immediately before he starts doing it bone chilling interaction to watch and then i think the choices that he makes to flesh out her character is also very telling of how he views himself to be not like other guys which is yeah we talk about not like other girls all the time but he clearly thinks he is like

different from all these other men right and also what was this book he wrote when he was 19 about because this writing is stinky she's 26 from dayton ohio her first crushers are humphrey bogart and john lennon kicked out of high school for he also projects a story of child sex abuse onto her to romanticize her and make it like it was her fault or that it was like a romantic lark that she took when she was a child yeah right he says this at one point she's like i'm a mess and he's like i love that you're a mess but he doesn't he like loves the parts of her messiness that he finds charming are like ways in for him to control her of like she doesn't know how to pay her bills well that's a way for me to control her little things that he enjoys doing but when it

comes to actually being a person he does i don't know it's all planted really really thoughtfully yeah it's like he only likes the part of her that's like instead of kissing she jumps into a pool with her clothes on right i'm shy. But that scene where she's the sort of character breakdown scene does feel like literally a note for note 500 Days of Summer thing. Because I do feel like that movie uses dating an older man as a way of showing like she's sort of like unpredictable. It's so hard to understand like what those writers were thinking whereas clear Zoe was thinking this is what those guys think is like cool or whatever exactly it's like i know that zoe kazan rejects the calling of ruby sparks the character a manic pixie dream girl and i tend to agree like this movie isn't putting out that character as like here's a story about a manic pixie dream girl it's an indictment of that trope but the character that he develops in this like list of characteristics he's like i think

rattling off to his therapist toward the beginning he has developed a manic pixie dream girl yeah and then when she turns out to not be that and be a much more like nuanced and complex person he doesn't know how to interact or deal with that and then again like harry his brother who is somehow like a genius in literary criticism and his inconsistencies are i don't know what to make of them exactly but he's just willing to give it a pass just because it's like i i do feel like there's i mean not so cartoonishly so but i do feel like there's people like that out there who like are essentially good partners in their actions but also talk shit about their partners in a way that can be ugly let me just list a few things he says and they're almost all in one conversation but it's in the car right no when they're like sitting by the pool right after oh okay write the manuscript so he's well

there's that the car's pretty bad because that's all so um he says like okay who reads love stories women and it's like okay reductive but then he's like but women aren't going to want to read this because quirky, messy women whose problems only make them endearing are not real. He's like, women will see right through this and you've written a shitty character. And he says like, the honeymoon phase thing doesn't last. Women are different up close. He starts talking about his own relationship. And then he says some weird things because he's like, I lovezy my wife but she's a weirdo for example sometimes she's mean as fuck for no reason and you're just like okay sir let's like recalibrate our definition of weirdo here because i'm not understanding and also is she mean as fuck or are you just a dipshit who's like not a great partner and she's calling you out for it i don't know i do think that line makes the most sense of like

other things he says is too sophisticated but that feels like actually his best way of being like both empathetic to his wife but also unable to understand yeah why right so he's like women are complicated like my wife confuses me all the time right and you're like well at least he understands that they're not only projections but like he should not hypothetically be sophisticated enough to be like and that's because women are three-dimensional you know like he's not like a media studies professor right so it's like he's a sports agent of course which you don't know that but um so that line i thought was like exactly i think what i could imagine the level of emotional intelligence they would be capable of i also think part of the problem is there's so

few characters in this movie yeah that like ultimately characters have to carry weight beyond their roles because you're like well it's only like three actors yeah and then there's like little they're like we have antonio banderas for 36 hours have fun yeah he's gonna make a chair very magic mike of him to do oh my gosh yes magic miking but i do like his version of like a homemade better than chair better but also it looks like a prop from the Blair Witch Project so I don't know before we hop back I just I wanted to take a moment for Susie because we are sort of talking about her yes here's Susie Corner there felt to me like and speaking of what you're just saying Jessie like the fact that she just does not get a lot of screen time at all i think she's talked about more than we actually see her talking which to me kind of undercuts what and that's i think

like really the main weakness of this movie for me is i wish that but i it depends on like who you view to be the main character of this movie i do wish that we got more moments with women i think it would have been cool if we got more moments with Ruby and women, because I think that not to be gender prescriptive, but people who have been in bad relationships can smell it on you a little bit. And it would have been cool to see her have an interaction with someone who is like, things don't feel quite right.

I think it would have been cool to give Ruby some sort of friend or ally to like help her tease out. Like, I don't know that undercuts the moment where she's completely shocked, but also no person she would meet in the world would be like, I know what's happening. Paul Dano writes down what you do. And that's why you can speak French now,

but just like someone for her to process that confusion would have been cool. And Susie would have been an interesting character to maybe be that person. But we don't know anything about her. We know that she's a weirdo. Maybe she's mean, but also maybe she's not. We don't know enough about her to even get a read on what the reality of that would be.

And that also she almost left him once. I forgot about that part. Which I think is a cool detail. But again, if you don't know the character is just like well she's just sort of like plot meat is kind of how she's treated and she's i think the only person of color with any significant speaking lines but again she's also not one of the least developed characters and yeah yeah, not significant. Well, it's like, I guess, Alia and Asif. That's why I thought, like, if I read this script and somehow had this ability to give Zoe a no.

And Fleischman in Trouble did not exist already. But yet somehow I knew it. It's like, it'd be so useful if the third act switched perspectives. Because, like, now it's like, what does a person with no memory of anything but a personality and a history how do they become a person that would be interesting that's not the movie was trying to make a comment on people like paul dano or whatever and i imagine also who knows if the studio was like well i gotta follow the protagonist which is mr man paul dano ruby sparks is a manifestation for him to like grow up. It did feel like a very that time where like that's the only plot a man could do, which is like, I mean, it's literally exactly what happened in 500 Days of Summer. Even though it is making fun of 500 Days of Summer, the plot still follows that way, even beyond when it's like useful for us as the viewer. Yeah, I mean, any sort of perspective shift, even if it doesn't do the hard fleishman is in

trouble thing to see ruby in a scene without calvin i think would have been useful and i don't think would have necessarily challenged the like reality of the movie we're in already does she have a scene where she talks to his mom i can't remember not really one-on-one i don't think sure oh now i need to watch the third time i'm pretty sure that we outside of when she's like calling him from a bar i don't know that we ever see a scene where they're not together because she i think recaps a conversation she had with his mom to him i'm pretty sure that that's how we find out about that because can you imagine that scene which wouldn't solve a bechdel problem but like like still would be like, she goes like, look, my boys, blah, blah, blah. You know, like something.

You can imagine that scene where like, she knows that both her sons have these sort of like problems with women, but like something, something, something. At least that would be like, what is Annette Bening's perspective on any of these things happening other than she has nice plans and like, it's cool to be married to antonio banderas whose character's name is mort yeah that like again i really really like zoe kazan i think she's like some of our s-tier nepotism i really do but i do like i thought the mom character again kind of like a missed opportunity and felt very like i've seen this character a million times like polo mom to woo woo mom unless that's like her being like this is a clear rom-com stock character that we've seen before so i don't know i'd be curious like what the reasoning was i understand that like on the rewatch calvin's reaction to his own mother is a huge red flag and very very self-involved where he clearly is

unwilling to accept a version of his mother that is not comforting and familiar to him which is how he treats women in general i think it's interesting that there is i don't really know what the timeline is but there is like an undercurrent of like calvin very likely has not processed grieving for his father and is projecting that onto his mom certainly more so than his brother who he sees all the time it seems like he avoids his mom and judges her for being in love again and i think we're led to believe embracing a truer version of herself yeah but like i wish that they used her more it's interesting because now that you talk about it from the perspective of grief right it's like so he's like essentially as we said like he's 19 and never stays 19 and

then like he responds like a kid's dad died and then he resents people who respond like a grown-up whose partner died or whatever and it's like that scene with him and the bunny or whatever in the therapist's office where he's like not only does he need a bunny to comfort him or whatever he then is like jealous that maybe someone else right and that is like how does sort of his grief and need to be comfort and his possessive interact with each other and you see it all from that scene right you just wouldn't think of it right at that scene you're like oh he's a quirky boy and he's gonna meet a quirky girl and this is gonna be, and there is a thing where his character is only referred to as a boy. Like, they're all girls and boys.

So there is something where like, oh, of course, a boy wants a girl. He just followed up on when Chris Messina is like, you haven't written a woman, you've written a girl. Kind of clarifies maybe what that means, even though I'm like, justice for girls. But yeah, like, I'm starting to, I'm like, is this the most genius movie of all time? Cause I also think you see early indications of the type of person he has in the way that he treats his dog, where first of all, he,

I think it's no mistake that he later makes Ruby act like his dog, but it's a really early conversation between him and his therapist. That seems kind of innocuous, but it's like, he wants to have a dog because he wants to have fun with his dog but every time we see that he needs to take care of his dog he's annoyed he doesn't want to do it he wants to offload the difficult part of having a dog to someone else and that's really depressing because it's like he views women as dogs and that

he also doesn't want to care to the difficult parts of a human relationship and he wanted the dog so that there would be this kind of built-in excuse for people to stop and pet the dog and then he'd meet people because he seems to struggle yeah eating with people and connecting with people but he's never like looked into why that is or they're like i can't criticize someone for getting a pet to feel more connected to the world no i'm not criticizing but totally like it's like another indication of like he will do backflips to avoid self-reflection right you know what's an interesting example like the alia shot kat scene which is so he's at first you're like he's using this person but even when she's like we're gonna

have sex he's like he spits out a drink she's like, we're going to have sex, he's like, he spits out a drink. Like, it's almost like, oh, no, I was using you just for this one thing of, like, getting a bearings of reality. I don't, I'm not even using you in the way you think I'm trying to use you. And he can't even, he doesn't even like that. And, but that also then reaffirms, he does that. He goes, I'm a good guy.

I'm just using this human being as a way of getting a grip with reality right i'm not using her to have sex that's like what bad guys do and you're like but she wants to have sex he doesn't get it yeah and it's like by his own description of women up to this point we know that he is judging her severely for wanting to have sex with him in spite of not knowing him very well which is like she clearly doesn't give a shit but it's like he's judging her for that and yeah he like says to her he's like i don't want that like he basically says like i'm not using you for anything and i think he believes that yeah scary bone chilling yeah truly a conversation that I felt really like, damn, this is well written. And this is very emblematic of the type of emotional abuse that this type of guy inflicts on people is the scene right after they've returned from that party where she got in the pool. And she says, you have all these rules and you don't tell me what they are until I've broken

one. And then you get to be disappointed in me. And he says like, here are my rules. Don't fuck other men and don't let them think about fucking you. And she's like, okay, so what now I'm responsible for what other people are thinking. And he's like, yeah, when you act a certain way, it leads people on. When you take off your clothes at a party, it makes people think you're a slut. And I'd prefer if you didn't do that. Is that clear enough for you? And it's just like, wow, everything about how he is in a relationship, his controlling this, his possessiveness, his condescension, it's like all just right there on display in a way that felt like very authentic to how that type of abuse plays out and i was just like damn yeah well it's also like how a guy like that uses quirkiness as like

a sort of shield or whatever which is like by sort of like being light-hearted he doesn't have to like actually reveal what he's actually thinking the entire time right so it's like hypothetically this entire time he's mad at her or resents her or it's like he creates her and he's like you dress you can imagine him being like you dress like a slut even though he described how she dresses i didn't even think of that yeah but then he's like finally where he's like pushed you're like, you've been all of these thoughts have been locked and loaded. And a worse movie would like somewhat like Frankenstein it. Right.

It's like you're my creation. But because the movie is like written more in defense of Frankenstein. Consider it. It's just acting as Frankenstein would. Frankenstein's monster. Not Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein would, Frankenstein's monster, not Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein.

I'd just be so fascinated to have a brain of a person who was really on board with Paul Daniels' character the entire time and then that happens. And does that person go, yeah, she is wrong. She shouldn't sleep with that guy.

Where that scene seems to be like, this is why a character would do this. Because it's almost like, I think what's interesting about this movie, it's like it's about human relationships, but it's also like a media critique, right? But it doesn't feel just like a media critique. And I think it works on all those levels that are sort of like, oh, what is it saying about how movies are structures and how that feeds into how people, men specifically, think how gender roles are supposed to play out right it's like the idea of roles it's like on multiple levels which i think is why she's so smart and good and also built in is like i'm gonna write really big crazy parts for me and my partner to like go off which is like

very very cool which is notable because like this is a huge breakthrough for her as an actress like paul had been in stuff because he was in little miss sunshine but she's like baby yeah they were like he was a big actor and she was just sort of like bouncing around doing theater and then does this and again writes a movie way later but like then becomes much more notable as an actress oddly enough almost exclusively playing romantic leads in like light-hearted indie comedies but it also works on sort of the basic level of like i want to showcase for us to show like i'm also not just what um hollywood thinks i am when they picture me yeah i'm like excited to see i mean i haven't seen more from her since but like i'm excited to just keep seeing more from her because she's i mean that sort of speaks

to the last thing i wanted to just like touch on, which we sort of talked about earlier, but just that like this movie just feels very ahead of its time in a way I wasn't expecting. I watched back some of the original press tour of this and it's a lot of Zoe and Paul and Paul being asked more questions and Paul being asked. There was one just like subtle stuff that like watching it 10 years later in like 360p, you're like, ooh, do not talk to my friend that way. There's either just like switching scene that Zoe Kazan has written. And she's asked more than once, like, how much improv happened in that scene, as if it was unbelievable that she could have written a well-constructed scene. It just made my blood boil. She went to Yale for playwriting. I was like, she wrote it, dude. It doesn't sound improvised whatsoever. And then I just wanted to share the lead on this

glowing new york times review of this movie from 2012 it's a critic's pick by stephen holden who hasn't entertained a fantasy of romantic omnipotence in which a dream partner complies with your every wish in the language of my fair lady, wouldn't it be loverly? But wait. Would unquestioning obedience really answer your deepest longings? Or would it rob you of the thrill of the chase? Might playing puppet master awaken inner demons that drive you to behave monstrously? Ruby Sparks is an ingenious and delightful variation on the Pygmalion myth. whimsically with these questions as the initially perfect relationship between an author and his sprung-to-life creation

goes through changes. That's how a positive review of this movie would go. In 2012? Ten years ago. Brutal. Well, I'll contrast that with a few quotes from zoe kazan just to kind of like contextualize where she was coming from and like how the development of this movie went and where the idea came from i guess she was inspired because she was like going home one

night and saw a discarded mannequin that she thought was a body and she was like oh no and then she realized it was a mannequin but she's like what if like there was this like discard like just like a i don't even know actually how i don't know how that turned into this idea but she was also inspired by the myth of pygmalion. And then she started writing a chunk of the script, and then she realized the thing that she wanted to explore with this is the kind of idea of love versus the actuality of it. And she has a few quotes that I want to share. I'll paraphrase this first part where she describes how, you know, her mom is a feminist, and she was raised with feminist thinking. And her parents had a kind of non traditional

relationship where traditional gender roles weren't that observed. And she says, quote, but with my first relationships, I found myself being expected to behave in an almost subservient way. It was shocking. I couldn't believe how traditional the roles are for so many people. My girlfriends would sometimes say to me, God, you're so lucky. He loves you so much. And I would think to myself, I'm so lonely. I feel like a doll, unquote.

And I feel like that informs like a lot of what this story is about. She also says, quote, I haven't seen a lot of things from that perspective, that idea of being gazed at but never seen that moment when you think I am so strong and so brave inside, and you're treating me like a baby. So I wanted to explore that in a way that wasn't unkind or alienating for men because i love men unquote and maybe like that almost makes men are awesome she says huge moment for jesse and it also makes me wonder like was that a studio note at the end or is she saying like men do reserve redemption sometimes?

I don't know. It's we don't know. Either way, I would just be interested to hear her talk about this movie now. Yeah. The final thing I want to share from her is she says, quote, I'm very girly. I've been girly since day one. But being girly led to relationships where the guy has a very strong idea of me. But it's an idea that's only appropriate for a doll. Just because I'm girly doesn't mean I'm a lost little girl. I hate that you're either a little lost girl or you're a bitch who doesn't need men, or you're a nurturing motherly type.

I have all of those things inside me who doesn't. Unquote. And so just like this collection of quotes is i think like very informative for like what her intentions were with this movie and we talk about this a lot especially that last quote as far as like oh hyper femininity has been kind of criticized by many different type of people but including feminists because it's like oh well you're just like succumbing to this expectation of what a woman i'm sure we were guilty of it early in the show i've definitely done it throughout my life um and i like that she's like no like just because i'm this way

doesn't mean that i'm not also other things and that i'm not complicated and that i am not a feminist so yeah i, I liked those quotes and I liked where she was coming from. Yeah, it was around these times there was like, I don't remember when New Girl started, but I feel like New Girl was partly also like the debate about like the idea of Zooey Deschanel because like people were like making fun

of like Hello Giggles type people. People were, yeah. And that was, so she was like on the front line of like quirky people can also have depth or whatever now like that is not like the number one thing this movie is about but it is somewhat defense of like you know quirky people are complicated they just sort of manifest those complications with different ways but um the calvin character as he's like listing off the traits of the ruby sparks character he he says something like, she's complicated, and that's what I like about her.

And it's, first of all, you did not develop her to be complicated. She just became complicated because she materialized as a human in the world. And secondly, you don't like that about her. You do not like that she's complicated. Yeah, you just like that. She's like a Zoe Kazan type. Yeah. Character actors who appear in rom-coms a lot,

she's been typed a lot over the years too. And I think it is interesting to look at hers and Paul Dano's career alongside each other because they've been together for so long. And it's like they're both tremendously talented actors. And it's like he easily gets more opportunities to show range and to try shit out. And he's still a type. Like, you're not casting Paul Dano for certain kinds of roles.

But like, he's not the Terminator. But he is the Riddler, right? He is the Riddler, right. And it's like Zoe Kazan doesn't get those kinds of opportunities, or at least that I know of. No, she gets to play a journalist in a movie, right? It's like she said, and it's her and Carey Mulligan, which are both Zoe Kazan, Carey Mulligan types. And it's the only reason they get to both be in a movie. It's because it's about two journalists.

She doesn't get to play the villain in a Batman movie. Like, imagine if she played Poison Ivy. It'd be the weirdest take on that character. It would be, like, imagine she played Poison Ivy. It'd be the weirdest take on that character ever. It would be cool. And it's interesting because it seems like she's, like, interacting with these ideas 10 years before it, you know, continues to happen. Yeah, because I imagine it's somewhat informed by going on auditions. And, you know, it's like quirky person type. And going into auditions, everyone is, like, a different version of, regardless of how manic they are are pixie in some capacity yeah sorry i was just distracted by my thought of you know who does get to be a batman villain zoe kravitz there can only

be one nepotism zoe in the batman universe zoe k yeah yeah oh wow wow yeah continues um does this movie pass the bechdel test? I don't think it does. I don't think it does. I don't think so. That's a bummer. Yeah. I could see that being a creative choice because I would be really surprised if Zoe Kazan was not aware of this metric just based on what I know about her.

Maybe that's not true, but I do think that that would probably be true. But I don't think that the movie, I don't know. I still think it's a fantastic movie that has a lot to say about Jinda. But I don't think that the movie would be harmed by, and I think in some ways in my brain version of this movie, it could be helped along in an interesting way by giving Zoe a woman in the real world to have some sort of like, or just watch Zoe observe other people's relationships and maybe talk to someone about

it. Like, it just feels like because we do see her being active as she gains autonomy without even realizing that that's what's happening. But it would have been cool to see her talk to people instead of just reacting to Calvin. So I feel like this would be stronger if she talks to more women there could even be a scene where like she either becomes friends with suzy or has like a girlfriend from her acting class or something like that and they talk about calvin's shitty behavior and she sees a woman being treated worse than she is and like how does she feel about that or like right right and then if ruby calls him out on his behavior then he would probably just write another sentence on his manuscript of like ruby has an intense distrust of other women because women are petty or something like that yeah intentionally keeping her from other

women would have been an interesting choice yeah yeah it seems like because both like intentionally the movie was like i have to follow the beats of male protagonist hero movie even if we're subverting it yeah right i think which i talked about last time which is like sometimes if you do the strictest version of like hero's journey it's's like, well, there's no room for anyone else. But also I imagine it's also, as we said, there's so little cast. There's so few speaking roles. That's why I was like,

it has to be the mother because there's only so much budget for her to like, all the people in her class have to be extras. She couldn't be like, that's some good painting, right? We can't even see her painting class.

Yeah, we don't know if she's any good, which does feel like a creative choice. I don't think he cares. It's not like her paintings are hanging up, which also is like, just doesn't give it he just wants her to do a romantic sounding thing he doesn't want to look at it no he prefers that she's good at cooking right right although i think we see some of her illustrations and paintings like in the bedroom yeah it's paintings of him right yeah it's paintings literally paintings

yes yeah but again he wrote her that way or something i don't know anyway nipple scale our scale of zero to five run down jesse based on how the movie fares from an intersectional feminist lens i think i'm going to give this a three and a half i'm docking it for the ending which is a little too sugary and Hollywood-y, and maybe it was a studio note or not. We're not sure. But basically, the Calvin character gets a redemption that I don't think he has earned at this point. And I don't like that he's presented with what seems to be an opportunity to reconnect with her and have a second chance. And again, I don't...

Not to say that people don't deserve a redemption. It's a case-by-case scenario, but... I think it's safe to say this person doesn't. This person at this time... Not this character. Does not, because he has not earned it at this time. So I did not like how the movie concludes but everything up until that point for the most part i thought was like a really interesting

characterization of men's expectations of like what a hetero romance with a woman should be or not you know hashtag not all, but like a very kind of in general or like, you know, under patriarchy. This is how a lot of men feel and how they operate and how they behave and what their conduct is like in these types of relationships. And it still happens. We're not past it yet. So I thought it was a really interesting exploration of all of that but also it's a very such a white movie and it's like we're in los angeles and what are we why anyway three and a half nipples maybe even four i'm not sure so Let's go 3.75 and I'll give one to Zoe Kazan. I'll give one to the actor who plays Susie,

which is Tony Trucks. I will give one to Annette Bening and I'll give my three quarters nipple to Scotty the dog and specifically the piss on male ally Calvin's bed I had a similar fruitless battle between 3.5 and 4 so I'll do the same 3.75 I think that this movie is pretty fucking amazing

I do appreciate and want to shout out the fact that it is co-directed by a woman Valerie Ferris of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris who previously did Little Miss Sunshine it is written-directed by a woman, Valerie Ferris of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, who previously did Little Miss Sunshine. It is written by Zoe Kazant. I think it's very, very rare, even in this sub-genre of good movies

that address this trope, to have a woman involved at the highest level, which is interesting. And so I'm actually giving it four because I just changed my mind. I do, however, think that like this entire subgenre also does take place in upper class white families with, I don't think, any exception,

which does feel worth examining. Yeah, especially because you're saying we're in LA. Like it's ridiculous to have Antonio Banderas in essentially a glorified cameo role, Ali Ishkot in essentially a glorified cameo role, Ali Ishkot in essentially a glorified cameo role, and Susie truly not involved in any meaningful way. So I am critical of that. I don't like the ending, obviously. But the majority of the movie, I think this movie is so ahead of its time, I think is really good. And it made me want to watch more Zoe Kazan by Zoe Kazan.

Because I don't want to watch She Said again, unfortunately. Not because I'm a misogynist, because it was boring. And I do want all the president's men with women journalists, but that was not it. And that's the rude thing I'm saying at the end for no reason. Jamie, I can't believe that you, you my creation would say something like that so excuse me while i type something said on my typewriter some of the best reporting of our time and it was like being a mother is hard and you're like oh my god anyways um we're talking about the movie ruby sparks which i'm giving four nipples to right now i am giving uh one to suzy i'm giving one to ruby sparks herself i'm giving one to alia shakat and i'm giving one

to you think i'm gonna give it to eminem benning i'm not i'm giving it to chris messina because i had a great time watching them wow yeah a guy who likes sports and can read talk about some there's i there's a lot being subverted in this movie i'm kidding uh-huh i'm going to a hockey game tomorrow wow incredible fred jesse what say you um i will also give it four nipples i have a bad memory but i've decided to retcon my brain to be like this movie changed my life and made me realize the flaws in my own ways like how i approach relationships i don't know if that's true but it seems around the time where i was like starting to get better at understanding people or people or whatever like i also think you know like i never said friend zone

probably but i maybe did you know like i was raised in this culture and i had to learn and i think this movie was formative in like helping i think 500 days of summer is somewhat also about how a certain type of guy creates an idea of a woman and then realizes like oh maybe i'm creating an idea i don't love her i love the idea of her but kind of really lets that person off the hook and this movie like really makes you sit with how grotesque it can look and like that scene where it's that scene that we talked about being really tough to watch like forces you to like confront that like this is the worst it possibly can be and i think that's really impressive but as we said it's like it is a narrow world

so and then i will give these nipples to one for zoe kazan the writer one for zoe kazan the actress because while doing this script she also found a way to show all different types of moves she can do and like that's the benefit of nepo baby and he's like well i'm gonna write this movie i must like showcase different things she speaks french yeah yeah which is a very kazan thing to do one for paul dano for reading the script being like yeah we should do this me and you what's the worst that could happen they're still together as far as i know they got two kids yeah i see paul dano around with one of those kids. Melissa Lozada Oliva, multiple-time guest of the show, met him at a coffee shop once and had a full-on – it wasn't a rom-com moment. But he was just like, what book are you reading?

And she was like, and I thought I was going to pass out. The first time I talked to Zoe, we talked about books. I can't remember why. Wow. A couple who reads books are so pervasive in society. Books are so important. They are real Brooklyn parent actors through and through. And then I have one more nipple and it will go to Valerie Ferris and Jonathan Dayton for

remind me what 2012 was like and having a soundtrack that was not Sufan Stevens, but sounded like the mood board was like, well, Sufan Stevens like. And I missed that. So kudos to them for this being the first project they did after that movie. Nice. Jesse, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Tell us about your book before you go.

Jinx. Books are so important. We just said it. Books are so important. We just said it. Books are so important. Call Dano and Zoe Kazan and read them. If I see them on the street, I got to give them a copy. The book is called Comedy Book. It's a book about how comedy functions as an art form and as part of our culture.

It's, I don't know, it's like a heady, big book about the last 40 years or so of comedy most related to our topic of conversation is a i talk about context and satire and is it better for satire to be really heavy handed a la black mirror or for it to be something like this where people might get confused i don't pick a side but as an easter egg i ultimately would prefer something like this than to black mirror yeah and it's uh bookstores i'm doing comedy shows for it one in new york on november 7th one in la on november 13th go to those please it's a wonderful but i'm like i'm enjoying it so much It's been my Sunday book. It's been keeping me company. Oh, that's so nice.

Is there anything social medias you'd like to plan? Oh, my name on all of them. I'm going to leave or X after the book comes out. But until then, if this is before that, I'm still on Twitter. But not Instagram is where I use just to promote things and post Simpsons screenshots. That's work. That's important work. And you can follow us also mostly on Instagram at Bechtelcast.

You can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast and become a matron where we do two bonus episodes every month plus access to the back catalog of around 150 bonus episodes all for five dollars a month if you want more episodes on our matron about someone being controlled we did three episodes about pinocchio so that you could you can go check that out uh you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the Bechdel cast. And with that, let's go to a park and meet all over and Groundhog Day, the worst relationship ever. Okay. Bye.

Bye-bye. Bye. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

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