Ruby in Paradise


Directed by Victor Nunez.

1993, Republic Pictures, 115 minutes.


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Cast

Ruby Lee Gissing: Ashley Judd

Mike: Todd Field

Ricky: Bentley

Mitchum Rochelle: Alison Dean

Mildred Chambers: Dorothy Lyman

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Photo by Bruce Weber


Plot Summary

The film begins with Ruby asserting her independence by leaving her small town in Tennessee heading towards "paradise", Panama City, Florida. The trajectory of this coming-of-age drama follows her personal growth as she falls in lust, falls in love and rejects both in order to discover herself as a strong woman.


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What Happens To Ruby

Ricky, the boss' playboy son, who manages the store in his mother's absence, makes several passes at Ruby. She accepts the first two, then rejects him when she realizes he is a negative influence, and a scumbag. She meets Mike, a garden store clerk and morose intellectual and falls in love with him. Just as the relationship with Mike develops, Ricky surprises her late one night in a drunken stupor. He tries to sexually assault her but is thwarted. He terminates her job as revenge for her refusal to submit to him. She applies for several jobs and is rejected. In desperation, she even considers a job in a strip joint but recognizes she can't sell her body. The constraints force her to accept a menial position in a commercial laundry operation. She bonds with the two women she works with and develops the sense that people from all walks inhabit the same world.


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At the Beginning of The Movie

The suture is established immediately with the opening credits in which Ruby is driving the Tennesee highway in an old beat up car headed towards Florida to Panama City ("paradise"). At night we see her silhouette nodding off as she tries to stay awake. She is young but determined to free herself of a limiting past where she claims she escaped "without getting pregnant or beat up." After her arrival in Panama City, she lands a job at a souvenir shop settling in a one room cottage amidst a complex. She buys a notebook and begins a journal to figure out the "whys" of her coming to a new place. She longs to understand actions, appearances though she is keenly aware of her own feelings. Her future is a puzzle she hopes to piece together though thoughts and actions don't always fit.

Elements are incongruous, the whys loom before her. Slowly, she makes efforts to put things in order. She buys a plant, dates Ricky, the boss' obnoxious son and is left feeling dissatisfied and begins to wonder what she's doing there.


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At the End of The Movie

Ruby, after regaining her lost job at Chamber's Emporium, comes to realize that retail is "a game whose rules she understands." She has matured since the start. She is free to choose with whom and whether she would like a relationship with a man. She is content playing the game she knows and living on her own. There is no sense that she is diminished by these decisions. She has found her "paradise" and learned that even paradise has it's cost. Ruby enters Chamber's Emporium in the final scene. Though we don't see any others in the store, she calls "hello, everybody" in an expectant, upbeat tone. We have the sense she has come to terms with her life, and for the moment, sychronised her inner feelings with the outside actions.


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Links

star Information on Ashley Judd at the Internet Movie Database.

starRuby in Paradise and interview with Ashley Judd

starRuby in Paradise: a film review

starThe Unofficial Web Page: Ashley's Altar.

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