overreaction, pre-review, written in a big hurry, rushing to judgment

This is one of those movies I should just decide right now that I will never see because I already know what's going to happen, which is that I will sit there alternating between bemusement and rage, hating everything about the movie, and then later everyone will have thought it was cute or charming or sweet. I did not rewatch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I hated, for years, but it kept coming up on respectable smart film critics' best-of-the-decade lists, so I thought maybe I had been in a reactionary mood when I saw it. After all, it came out in 2004, and maybe I was still figuring out that it's not exactly fair that all the stories seem to be told by men for men about men and their desires. A discovery like that can make a person overreact for a while. So I finally went back and gave it another chance, just a few months ago. And I hated it, I hated it. It's so gross the way we watch this whole story that is not just theoretically told from his perspective, but literally constructed solely from his memories, she has no existence in this movie. There is no Clementine. And we're supposed to have feelings about their relationship, to care what happens to them, and never mind the fact that they are both so terribly unpleasant and unimaginative and ugly, they are also just one person not two. Just this one man, and his internal fantasy about a life. Note: I also find the movie impossible to follow from a plot standpoint, and not very pretty to look at, but I'm getting into the weeds now. I'm not here to talk about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, except in that it is sort of the quintessential movie in which there is a relationship between an ordinary man and an impossible imaginary fantasy girl.

But this movie. Ruby Sparks. Jeez. In case you don't have time to watch the preview, the premise is that Paul Dano's character is a writer, and he creates a flesh-and-blood woman out of nothing. He's the inventor of her. Sort of like Pygmalion, but less progressive. It's a cute idea, I get that. Except that it's deeply troubling--and also a massive cliche. Consider the idea that a woman's very existence depends on being the object of love. It's troubling and it's also so very very boring.

It's like Zoe Kazan (who wrote the screenplay, and also stars in the movie) read about manic pixie dream girls, and she thought: the trouble with every Zooey Deschanel character is that it's theoretically possible for her to express an opinion. What we really need is a story about a woman who is literally controlled, internally and externally, by the man at the center of the story. What we need is a movie about how fun and awesome it is to be the girl in that story, or in that relationship.

Watching the trailer, I felt sort of sick and gross, this dizzy feeling I get when I am forced to realize that people don't see things the way I see things. It's not unlike the feeling when I can't find my keys, even though I know exactly where I left them. Like the reality I live in is just not quite the same reality where anyone else lives. It's unsettling to know that people I can most of the time communicate with are loving the wit and/or charm and/or humor of a thing I find mostly baffling and sometimes outrageous.

From the trailer: "You can make her do anything you want. For men everywhere, tell me you're not going to let that go to waste." Ha ha. Get it? Men want women to do stuff that they don't necessarily want to do. It is rough for men everywhere.

I know, maybe the movie will redeem itself. I admit there is a possibility that the movie is not what I think it is, that in the end somehow it's a movie about female agency not a movie at the expense of female agency. I recognize that I am rushing to judgment.

I am trying to think of examples of stories in which a woman defines the fantasy, they must exist. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Stranger Than Fiction, and the thing is, that movie is still all about the dude. It's all about the experience of being fictional. So I don't think it works as a counterexample. Certainly there are movies by and about women, great movies that reflect experiences of women or tell good stories about women. But it's hard to think of any where she has all the power and his desires are just a reflection of her needs.