Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #24: Ruby Sparks (2012).

Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano) is in a rut. In high school he wrote a book that took the literary world by storm and made him a guru for millions of other teens. But now, in his late 20s, he's burnt out. Mired in writer's block and a nascent love life, after appearing on a Where Are They Now?-style TV talk show and in frequent consultation with his therapist (Elliot Gould), Calvin starts writing about a young woman named Ruby (Zoe Kazan), who quickly inspires him. But that brings more than his mind to life. It literally brings Ruby to life! Cue the artist's meltdown. Now, as he comes to terms with the enormity of what he has created, Calvin must also choose whether to keep writing this romance or just see how it unfolds.

Romantic comedies are very hit-and-miss for me, chiefly because they usually follow the same boy-meets-girl formula. Ruby Sparks (2012), however, is an utterly refreshing, smartly plotted, profound and inventive addition to the canon. Dano is nicely layered and funny as what could've just been a younger knockoff of any Woody Allen persona. He's also reunited here with directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who made his/their breakthrough movie Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and while I've always adored that one, this may be even better. They handle this challenging material with such confidence and innovation that it's just striking, most of all in one late scene involving a typewriter that floored me in the cinema and still does. Credit here also goes to cinematographer Matthew Libatique and composer Nick Urata.

But the loudest applause here must be reserved for Zoe Kazan, who also wrote the screenplay. Dano's real-life partner and Oscar-winning director Elia Kazan's granddaughter, as writer she completes a brilliant puzzle of finding and keeping love in our time and of the creative process, and as Ruby she switches seamlessly between laughs and tears. The word "genius" is thrown around now like rice at a wedding but her screenplay is Oscar-worthy and her performance should've been nominated. But somehow, nobody involved was.

I'm prepared to call this the most underrated movie of this decade. And I can't resist ending this way: Ruby Sparks amazement.