Florida-based independent filmmaker Victor Nuñez gave young actress Ashley Judd her breakthrough role with his original script about a woman taking to the road to escape her past and forge a new future for herself. Feeling smothered and confused after the death of her mother, Ruby Lee Gissing flees her Tennessee home. She drives south to the panhandle of Florida, because she has always dreamed of living near the ocean. Mildred Chambers (Dorothy Lyman), the owner of a souvenir shop, hires her as a clerk and befriends Ruby as well. Soon, there are two men in Ruby's life: Mike McCaslin (Todd Field) and Mildred's ne'er-do-well son, Ricky (Bentley Mitchum). Although Ruby briefly succumbs to the advances of one of them, by the film's end, she is still on her own, understanding that a new chapter of her life is just beginning. In addition to the picture taking home the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Judd was nominated for Best Actress by the New York Film Critics and won Best Female Lead at the Independent Spirits. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Review
Ruby in Paradise is an honorable addition to the growing genre of films about women who take to the road to find themselves, an avenue once only reserved for men in films like Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Scarecrow, and Sullivan's Travels. Writer/director Victor Nuñez sidesteps the melodramatic possibilities (Ruby isn't toting a gun and she doesn't have to fight her way out of a possible rape), but he's also careful not to let the film descend into mawkish self-absorption. Ruby is smart, but not so smart that she doesn't fall in with two men whose intentions are hardly honorable. The film's real strength is to avoid offering her a Prince Charming; Ruby understands that she has to find strength in kissing a couple of frogs first. Even the title has a nice ring of ambiguity: What looks like paradise to a Tennessee girl who has never seen the ocean is to some eyes the least glamorous and attractive stretch of Florida beachfront property, nicknamed the Redneck Riviera. Ashley Judd has gone on to bigger things than this film, but few better. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
Judy Courtney; Bobby Barnes - Wanda; Sharon Lewis - TV Weather Anchor; Andy Anderson - Nursery Family; George Clark - Homeless Family
Credit
Burton Rencher - Art Director, Marilyn Wall-Asse - Costume Designer, Jennifer Fong - First Assistant Director, Victor Nuñez - Director, Victor Nuñez - Editor, Charles Engstrom - Composer (Music Score), John Iacovelli - Production Designer, Peter Wentworth - Producer, Sam Gowan - Producer, Pete Winter - Sound/Sound Designer, Victor Nuñez - Screenwriter
Judd plays Ruby, the title character and narrator of the film. As the film begins, she is leaving Tennessee, landing in Panama City, Florida, a summer resort town she visited as a child. Although she arrives there in fall, at the beginning of the off-season, she gets a job at Chambers Beach Emporium, a souvenir store run by Mrs. Chambers (played by Lyman), overcoming the owner's initial rejection of her employment application by telling her "I've done retail before, and I work real cheap." Over the course of a year she keeps a journal (from which the film's narration is taken) and contemplates her career ups and downs, her love life, her past, and her future.
The film is a character study, proceeding at a leisurely pace with Ruby's introspective comments interspersed with routine scenes at the souvenir store or conversations with her friend Rochelle (played by Dean), or the men she dates (played by Field and Mitchum).
Filmed on location in Panama City, Florida, the movie features actual college Spring Breakers in roles as extras, which served to highlight the difference between Ruby's "paradise" and the college student's "paradise". Of particular note is the scene of Paul Heuwetter, Eric Olsen, Mark Woodard, and Chris Musillo in the surf-shop where Ruby works. Heuwetter, Olsen, Woodard and Musillo are typical college Spring Breakers from elite northern private colleges.
