Ruby in Paradise

Ruby in Paradise is a breathtaking movie about a young woman who opens the book of her life to a fresh page, and begins to write. Read full review

Nunez handles Ruby's fragile personal growth with a loving concern that might escape most male filmmakers. Read full review

Nunez unfolds her story at a leisurely yet steadily absorbing pace, allowing Ashley Judd to develop one of the year's most luminous performances in the title role. Made on a low budget by artists with high hopes and towering talents, this is another undersung gem that deserves much wider fame. [13 Jan 1994, p.12]

A wonderfully expressive character study exhibiting a thoughtfulness and concern for real life rare in American cinema, Ruby in Paradise rewards the care put into it and the patience it asks of audiences. After an eight-year layoff from filmmaking after A Flash of Green, Victor Nunez has returned with a film of gentle, intelligent qualities, vividly portraying a young woman's inner life. Read full review

As quietly confident in its emotional grounding as any American film you'll see this year, and animated by a radiant debut performance from Ashley Judd in the title role, Ruby in Paradise is refreshingly removed from the usual strivings for effect. Part of its allure is that it plays out in what seems like real time. [12 Nov 1993, p.49]

Showing us both Ruby and her Paradise in his loving, calm, unexaggerated way, Nunez gives us one of the warmest and most genuinely affirmative American movies of the year. [26 Nov 1993, p.C]

What makes Victor Nunez's film so special is the modesty of its story and the power that Judd brings to the role. Very quickly, we get the feeling that this story is too familiar to young women. A special film. [03 Dec 1993, p.C]

Thanks to a natural and highly charismatic performance by Judd, Ruby in Paradise has a graceful lyricism--as well as a complex sense of what living in today's world is like--that will stay with you; the tempo is slow and dreamy, but the flavor is rich, and it lasts. Read full review

Nunez is a major filmmaker who thrives working in a minor key. He makes Ruby a romantic fable with a tough core of intelligence and wit. It’s a real beauty. Read full review

There are no grand Hollywood moments in Ruby in Paradise, a drama about one intelligent woman finding herself, just a series of quiet scenes and personal epiphanies that add up to a satisfying independent film. Read full review

Of all the American independent movies this year, Ruby In Paradise is one of the strongest because, for all its meandering style, it seems to know exactly what such a life as Ruby's is about. [25 Nov 1993, p.4]

Director Nunez, whose previous films (Gal Young 'Un, A Flash of Green) are also set in Florida, has an ability to translate states of mind into their native environments and vice versa. In this instance, his regional realism combines with Judd's transfixing performance to create a movie that sticks to your ribs. Read full review

Male coming-of-age stories are a dime-a-dozen, but the same cannot be said for the female equivalent, especially when the story is told with intelligence and sensitivity. This makes Ruby in Paradise a rare and welcome change of pace. Read full review

A modestly budgeted but richly rewarding look at a Tennessee housewife's search for a better life. Read full review

Nunez's determined lack of slickness does have its rewards. For one thing, it allows the atmosphere of the movie's tourism-based town to emerge. And Nunez doesn't go the easy route of using the tackiness of the gift shop and the other locations for cheap laughs: He's more interested in their authenticity. [26 Nov 1993, p.20]

It's a sensational part for a young actress -- the film is told entirely from her point of view, using her journal entries as voice-over narration -- and Judd, in her first film, gives a subtle, delicate performance. [05 Nov 1993, p.C12]

Ruby in Paradise is a fine, quietly moving look at a young woman's voyage of discovery. It is most memorable for the feature-film debut of Ashley Judd in the title role, but the rest of the cast is excellent, as well, and Gregory Nunez (Gal Young 'Un) directs from his own script with heartfelt clarity. [26 Nov 1993, p.3F]

Ruby in Paradise is more often pensive than genuinely thoughtful, but it is helped immensely by Ms. Judd's gravity and strength. Read full review

Ruby in Paradise has small flaws. But it also has enough small pleasures to make it a warm-hearted, well-intentioned alternative to noisier Hollywood fare. [11 Nov 1993, p.B08]

In its attempts to deal with her character's aimlessness and inability to discover a satisfying code of behavior ("Are there any real reasons for living right anyway?"), the script is sometimes thoughtful, sometimes banal and schoolgirlish. [12 Nov 1993, p.D16]

Judd is well cast as the small town gal looking to start afresh and gain her independence in this chick flick about learning who you are. The supporting cast allow Judd to spar of them, with the result a pleasing but by no means exciting story. Read full review

Ultimately, though, it’s the film that’s tentative-and more than a little plodding. Instead of following through on the relationships, Nunez allows Ruby in Paradise to get bogged down in his heroine’s economic woes. The film ends up being about whether she’ll land on her feet, when what we really want to see is whether she can stand tall. Read full review

The drama still does make for an interesting exploration into a deeply troubled main character and has an authentic backbone to reel back the story from absurdity. Read full review

Ruby in Paradise, which is really about nothing more than a woman's quest to succeed as a cashier in a boardwalk gift shop, never rises about the nearly staggering banality of its plot line. [12 Nov 1993, p.G15]

You know there's truth in these drab small-town lives, but, regrettably, there's little drama or humour to sustain interest in Ruby's vague musings on her bleak search for paradise. Read full review