Surprisingly incoherent and boring

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This 1993 film by Victor Nunez, Starring Ashley Judd, is a slow-paced character study that takes its time going nowhere in particular, and does it beautifully. It tells the story of Ruby Lee Gissing, a young woman who packs up her old beater of a car one day and just drives out of her dead-end life in a rural Tennessee backwater in search of something, anything, better.This isn't the sort of film that builds up to a melodramatic moment where Ruby must decide whether to stay or go. In fact, the very first scene with her driving away with her old life (literally) in her rear-view mirror would have made a great final scene to another movie. Instead, we really don't know much of her backstory, other than she's finally, as she says later, "Made it out of Tennessee without getting beat up or pregnant."For no reason other than a pleasant memory of a vacation she had as a child, she lands in a seaside tourist town (Panama City Beach). Unfortunately, it is the off-season and it looks as if she may may have traded one future-less existence for another.Here the movie takes a subtle turn. She finds a job (not a great one, but it pays the bills). She starts keeping a journal. She makes friends. She makes missteps with relationships. She starts building a new life that isn't going to change the world but it is better than the one she left behind. It all unfolds by degrees that some will find dull but many will find true and familiar and poignant. By the end of the movie we realize that paradise can be what you make of it. And we know that Ruby will be just fine.This movie is currently posted on YouTube and has never been released in any other format other than VHS. See it while you can.

Victor Nunez imbues this unsentimental tale of a young woman's emotional journey with a sense of poetry seldom seen in cinema. By poetry I mean the sense in which the literary and the cinematic come into play. There is something very literary about the film, almost as if a novel has been adapted page by page to screen. In this sense, the film achieves depths many cannot; but it is also rather slow at other times, undercutting the depths it once achieved in favor of ennui. The film's star Ashley Judd has not yet made a better film than her debut here. She fits the role of lead Ruby like a glove, almost as if she didn't have to act. She has true movie star presence in the film, and hasn't really managed to convey the same allure in her later films, although she was impressive in Normal Life.

I remember 1993 as a year of great female performances. You had Angela Bassetts striking interpretation as Tina Turner in What's Love Got to Do With It; Debra Winger as the dying American Joy Gresham in Shadowlands; Winona Ryder manipulative as May Welland in The Age of Innocence; and the silent power in Holly Hunters performance in The Piano. But as great as these performances were, no performance was better than Ashley Judds, Ruby Lee Gissing in Ruby In Paradise.What a GREAT film.There are scenes in this film that ring a sense of truth to what we say and act on, in human nature, as "real" people and not of what Hollywood synthesizes the fake emotions of what human nature should be like. Take for example in the scenes where Ruby trying to be employed and make an existence for herself; trying to work for living. If this was a big Hollywood studio film, her character would be receiving monthly support payments from God. Ashley Judd, and director Victor Nunez, do a great dance of allowing the character to make choices that are truthful and not false. Other film recommendations on similar themes see Erick Zonka's Dreamlife of Angels.

This was the first movie I ever saw Ashley Judd in and the first film of Victor Nunez' that I ever say, and boy am I glad I did. Its' quiet tone, its' relaxed pace, its' realistic depiction of a young woman just starting out in life, its' fine depiction of the struggles she has to go through to make her mark in life, the decisions she makes based on real things, the people she meets - there is nothing wrong with this movie. It is as close to movie magic as I have ever seen outside of the " Star Wars " movies, and, given what those films are like, that means this film deserves a high rating indeed. Ashley Judds' acting, Mr. Nunez'writing, and its' great simple worthwhile story make this a fine coming-of-age story and a wonderful movie.