_Ruby in Paradise_ and interview with Ashley Judd It seems like a simple film. Ruby Lee Gissing (Ashley Judd) is a strong-willed, intelligent woman in search of a life outside smalltown Tennessee. An opening credits sequence shows her leaving a young man who gesticulates angrily in her rearview mirror. Ruby arrives in the seasonal haven of Panama City, Florida, looking for work. That she finds work in a souvenir shop which is owned by an initially crusty but eventually supportive woman named Mildred (Dorothy Lyman) is not surprising. Nor is it surprising that much of Ruby's development over the course of the film is conveyed through her carefully handwritten diary entries ("Somewhere I heard that hell is when all your dreams come true. Maybe it's 'cause they all don't fit together"). She is a devoted and gracefully acute self-observer, and she's played by Judd, who exudes an uncanny purity (see interview). Writer-director Victor Nunez has crafted a movie whose gentle, intimate-seeming rhythms reflect the emotional journeying of its central character. It does seem like a simple film. If its lack of a plot per se is part of its effectiveness (making Ruby's seem like a "normal," even mundane, existence), it is also not unexpected, given the film's success at this year's Sundance Festival (where low-key films are ritually appreciated). While she's more subtle than stereotypical, Ruby's character also seems to inhabit familiar narrative patterns, caught between working women's non-options (oppressive men, go-nowhere jobs, tenuous friendships with similarly burdened women). And yet there are moments when the movie turns down stranger paths, and these are the most rewarding. "Paradise" is an ironic term, of course, as it must be in a film set in a tourist trap, whose protagonist puts price labels on little dolls made of seashells. Ruby's co-worker, Rochelle (Allison Dean), says she has plans for college and marriage to her long-distance boyfriend, "all that good stuff." She also warns Ruby to stay away from Mildred's scuzzy playboy son, Ricky (Bentley Mitchum). Well, yes, this ominous advice leads directly to Ruby's night out and sex with the selfish fellow, and a subsequent mall shoplifting spree, which seems reasonable, if overt, as a response to this troubling liaison. Then she meets Mike (Todd Field), a nice guy who wants to take care of her. But this customary movie solution is less than ideal, as she sits observes her young neighbor (Betsy Douds in a delicate and affecting performance) being beaten by the apparent love of _her_ life. When Ruby is, later, also assaulted in her home, the turn is at once poignant and calculated, political and specific. The details of her reactions resonate beyond the cliched observations that men oppress women or women bonding is a good thing: her stillness wrapped in a blanket, her one-line moment of empathy for her inarticulate assailant, her quiet refuge working crummy hours in a laundry room. For all its simplicity and occasional resorts to formula, _Ruby in Paradise_ is not ordinary. Interview with Ashley Judd Ashley Judd is what they call a trooper: hardworking, focussed, and resolute. Busy with multiple interviews, she called from California a few minutes after our assigned time. After twenty minutes of movie-talk, she said there was something I should know. Oh no, I worried. And there it was: "My house burned down yesterday. I wouldn't want you to be mad at me if you read about it tomorrow in USA Today." Judd's concern with my reaction is typical of her interview style. Even over the phone it was clear that she pays attention, and works hard to make connections. In an effort to ease the tensions of interviewing long distance, and not picking up on her apology for being distracted and reference to "events in my neighborhood," I asked a regular sort of metaquestion, something about the stress of promotional touring. She responded, as she did throughout, with remarkable poise and clarity. "I enjoy talking about the movie because I'm proud of it, and I actually recently had a wonderful twist of grace. A few weeks ago when I was starting to become tired of the redundancies, I realized that this would be the only time in my life when people will want to talk to me in such detail about _Ruby in Paradise_. From here on out it's going to be _Natural Born Killers_ which I shot with Oliver Stone [note: Judd's part was cut from the theatrically released version of _NBK_], and the next movie I intend to film, which is _White Harvest_, with Joan Silver, or perhaps one of the projects I might be lucky enough to land in between. This film, my rite of passage, is extraordinarily special to me, and I might as well enjoy the bounty of conversations about it while I have them. And honestly I've been really pleased, I've met some neat people and had some very neat conversations." Consummately professional, she is a publicist's dream. "It's never lost on me that it's a really cool thing to be working with Victor Nunez. In terms of input, there wasn't much room because the script was already so perfect and so fully arrived... It was a very special shoot, people coming out of the woodwork... from such disparate backgrounds, who drop their lives and drop their babies and clutter around Victor whenever he's ready to make a picture. There was so much dedication and esprit de corps." She says that she had a similar experience on the Stone movie (scripted by Quentin Tarrantino), in which she plays the sole survivor of a slumber party massacre. When I asked her about what this might mean in terms of gender politics, she demurred. "I don't think it's my place to analyze. My job is to get up early and work hard and know how I feel about the material and what things need to be and do my stuff when somebody says 'action."' When I suggested that _Ruby_ examines another sort of systemic violence against women (the character survives an assault), Judd said she couldn't talk about that. "I'm not trying to be ornery or cryptic, but again that falls outside of the realm of my consideration.... I read this script and felt passionately moved by it. And for some reason or another had an instantaneous and deep understanding of the material. But it's all from the inside.... I don't know what the whole picture is and I rarely get the audience's glimpse of the tapestry. I'm on the backside with colored threads and masses of knots. I just don't see the smooth, finished picture. You know sometimes I think that I should go ahead and really think about the question you asked me and write out a couple of paragraphs, and decide how I feel about it so that I'll be appropriately armed for the next interview. "But you know what this movie is to me is personal and emotional and I don't want to get cerebral about it. I just don't.... I think the movie is human and simple and truthful and real... Ruby doesn't have to answer a 'progressive, liberal cliche,' to quote Roger Ebert. Ruby doesn't suddenly become a folksinger. She doesn't grab a gun or a Cadillac. Her answer is retail." As I say, Judd pays attention. The script appealed to her because she felt a "willingness to be alone, and cotemplate the rich interior life, and the more idiosyncratic moments, like taking a pinch of the pie with my fingers or repeating the weather forecast. Those little moments were as full and emotional and galloping to me as the horse racing scene in _Anna Karenina_. They were a big deal. And I got it. In that Jungian way, I understood it." This is contrary to her sense of the business generally. "People don't have a real experience emotionally when they film. Actors and actresses are so far away these days from emotional, human realities. And that's the way I study and that's what I appreciate my own life, so obviously that's what I'm going to bring to my work. It's what my life is about."