Ruby Movie Review

“Ruby” is the first movie in Lifetime’s ‘Landry Family’ Four-Movie Series, which debuted on March 20, 2021. Raechelle Banno (an actress best known in her native country of Australia) stars in the title role as Ruby Landry, a young seventeen-year-old Cajun girl growing up in the Louisiana Bayou who gradually begins to discover dark family secrets that forever alter the course of her life.

I was apprehensive about another V.C. Andrews’ family movie series after the similar “Casteel Family’ Five-Movie Series that was released in the Summer of 2019 over five weeks. The ‘Casteel Family’ Movie Series was not well-received by fans of the Casteel Family novels, which were originally released beginning in 1985 with “Heaven.” The biggest complaint was because of a significant change to the main heroine’s hair colour from brunette in the novels to bright red in the movies.

Such a change in the main character’s appearance might not be considered significant in other book-to-screen adaptations, but Heaven Casteel’s hair colour is emphasized often throughout the Casteel Family novels and is important thematically. The core fans were rightfully upset about this fundamental change to the story for the Lifetime movies.

I was pleased to see that Lifetime listened to the fan’s complaints about the ‘Casteel Family’ Movie Series and made sure the hair colour of Ruby and her identical twin sister, Gisselle Dumas (Karina Banno), was red. Although not a very consistent shade of red on either of the actresses unfortunately. It’s obvious their hair was dyed at least several times throughout filming and their hair is rarely the same shade in most scenes, which was distracting and made them appear less like identical twin sisters. Sometimes Ruby’s hair, which she’s supposed to be named for, looked more like a pale apricot. Lifetime probably would have been better off investing in two high-quality wigs of the exact same shade of ruby red to ensure the actresses hair colour stayed the same throughout shooting rather than having the actresses dye their hair.

The highlight of the movie is definitely Raechelle Banno as Ruby Landry. For fans of the novels she captures a good balance between Ruby’s wide-eyed innocence and the plucky spirit that allows her to survive in a cruel world. Raechelle Banno fully commits to the role and makes you root for her fish-out-of-the-Bayou character as she goes from rags to the riches of upper class New Orleans.

Raechelle Banno as Ruby Landry

Ruby is raised by her grandmother, Grandmere Catherine (Naomi Judd), in Houma, Louisiana because Ruby’s mother, Gabrielle, died after giving birth to Gisselle and Ruby. Grandmere Catherine is a short-lived but important character in the novel “Ruby” who is forced to reveal the family’s secrets to her granddaughter after Ruby begins to unwittingly fall in love with her half-brother, Paul Tate (Sam Duke). Paul was raised by his real father and who he thinks is his mother in Houma, but he’s actually the product of an affair between his father and Gabrielle that took place before Ruby was born.

Naomi Judd as "Grandmere Catherine"

Judd’s line delivery is wooden and fails to capture any of Grandmere Catherine’s strength, spirit and independence from the novels. Her character in the movie is even more short-lived than in the novel but given Judd’s lackluster performance perhaps that’s for the best.

As Paul, Ruby’s childhood sweetheart who’s eventually revealed to be her half-brother, Sam Duke has good chemistry with Raechelle Banno’s Ruby. They manage to convincingly capture the angst and confusion of discovering the fresh bud of young love only to have it suddenly turn forbidden.

Grandpere Jack (Serge Houde), makes a brief but impressionable appearance as Ruby’s grandfather, who is as greedy and selfish as his character in the novel. There’s a scene where he negotiates the sale of his underage granddaughter to a friend as casually as if he’s selling a refrigerator that’s especially chilling.

Ruby manages to make a daring escape from her grandfather’s devious clutches to go in search of the father she’s never met before in New Orleans, Pierre Dumas (Gil Bellows). While she was dashing Ruby’s hopes about having a relationship with Paul, Grandmere Catherine also revealed who Ruby’s father is, where he lives and that Ruby has an identical twin sister she’s never met because they were separated at birth. Even though he was already married when he first met Ruby’s mother, Gabrielle, Pierre fell in love with her when he went to the bayou on a hunting trip and she became pregnant. Pierre’s wife, Daphne (Lauralee Bell), couldn’t have children but Pierre’s father wanted an heir so he negotiated with Grandpere Jack to buy Gabrielle’s baby so Pierre and Daphne could raise “their child” in New Orleans.

As is tradition in any proper V.C. Andrews’ family.

Grandpere Jack was unaware that Gabrielle was pregnant with twin girls when he negotiated his deal with Pierre’s father or else he might have been able to double the profits he made from his daughter’s womb. Gisselle is ostensibly the lucky one who was born first and gets swept away to grow up in opulence in New Orleans with her real father and fake mother. According to Grandmere Catherine, Grandpere Jack tried to snatch Ruby away, too, when he realized he could make twice the profit off Pierre’s father, but Grandmere Catherine bashed her husband over the head with a pewter pitcher and tossed him out of her Bayou shack permanently.

Neither Pierre, Daphne, nor Gisselle are aware of Ruby’s existence until she arrives on their doorstep unannounced in New Orleans. Before she meets her new wealthy family, however, Ruby is introduced to Gisselle’s boyfriend, Beau Andreas (Ty Wood), outside the gates of Pierre’s estate. Beau is expecting to pick Gisselle up for a Mardi Gras party in a fancy gown but encounters Ruby in more demure attire instead, which he mistakes for a Mardi Gras costume he thinks Gisselle is wearing.

Ty Wood as Beau Andreas

Beau quickly deduces that Ruby is not Gisselle and takes her to meet the real Gisselle, who is properly attired in a sparkling emerald green Mardi Gras gown. In spite of Gisselle’s obvious resemblance to Ruby, Gisselle thinks Beau must be playing some kind of trick on her, doesn’t accept that she has a sister and decides that Ruby must just want money before storming off indignantly.

Karina Banno gives an excellent performance as Gisselle Dumas, capturing the same vanity, arrogance and conceit as her character in the Landry Family novels with occasional glimpses of the vulnerability lurking underneath.

Karina Banno as Gisselle Dumas

Ty Wood also succeeds at bringing nuance to Beau Andreas, who is a rather one-dimensional character in the Landry Family novels. In the books, Beau’s defining characteristic is that he’s really good-looking. With his piercing blue eyes and charming smile, Wood looks the part but in the movie he’s portrayed as much nicer and more patient than Beau ever was in the Landry Family novels.

In the art room scene where Beau strips down and dares Ruby to sketch him in all his natural glory, he’s much more aggressive in the novel and he pressures her into having sex with him for the first time. In the movie that same moment is played off more as a boldly flirtatious incident that ends with Beau fully dressed before anything too inappropriate can happen because they get busted by Daphne. The scene ends with Beau claiming only a passionate kiss,

Beau is also way more chivalrous in the movie than he was in the books. In the movie he makes seductive advances towards Ruby. but he usually accepts her rejections with only the mildest of flirtatious complaints. Wood has great chemistry with Raechelle Banno’s Ruby and they convincingly portray two lovestruck and hormonal teenagers gradually falling in love.

As Pierre Dumas, Gil Bellows doesn’t resemble the physical description of his book character who is supposed to have green eyes and chestnut brown hair, but he’s as kind-hearted as his book counterpart. Pierre is genuinely happy to discover that he has another daughter whose existence he never knew about. He doesn’t hesitate to invite Ruby to get immediately settled in to live with them.

Gil Bellows as Pierre Dumas

Pierre’s wife, Daphne, is much less enthralled with her newly revealed stepdaughter from the Bayou. Lauralee Bell more closely resembles her book character in physical appearance with her blonde hair, blue eyes and natural elegance. Bell also evokes Daphne’s haughty and disdainful attitude towards Ruby’s completely unexpected and unwanted intrusion into their lives, which forces Daphne to fabricate new lies to try and explain Ruby’s sudden existence. She decides the tale of a second secret daughter who was kidnapped from the nursery in New Orleans by Cajun people and eventually sold to the people she came to think of as her family will do the trick. They kept their personal family tragedy private until Ruby was returned to them “by the Grace of God.”

God and a Grandpere who can’t seem to kick the habit of selling his grandchildren

Lauralee Bell as Daphne Dumas

When Ruby is made aware of the enormous lie she’s supposed to go along with, she tells Daphne that she doesn’t think she could possibly say a bad word about her Grandmere Catherine. Daphne icily informs her that if she can’t say anything bad then Ruby shouldn’t say anything at all. Bell is especially effective in this pivotal scene between Daphne and Ruby, which could be straight out of the soap opera world Bell is most famous for.

Welcome to your new family, Swamp Trash!

One of the biggest complaints the book fans had about Lifetime’s movie adaptations of V.C. Andrew’s novels prior to the ‘Landry Family’ movies were major deviations in the script from what happens in the novels. The script for “Ruby” was written by Richard Blaney and Gregory Small and is generally very faithful to the original novel. There are a few minor alterations to the story that were probably necessary due to time constraints but otherwise the movie’s plot adheres closely to the events in the novel.

“Ruby” was directed by Gail Harvey, who also directed “Gates of Paradise” in the ‘Casteel Family’ Movie Series in 2019. Harvey’s directing is solid for the most part, especially for a melodramatic story that requires a lot of suspension of disbelief in order to get properly invested. Unfortunately the last ten minutes of the movie have more of a slapstick tone that was jarring compared to the more serious dramatic tone of the rest of the movie. There are dashes of humor sprinkled throughout the movie that are appropriate, but the last ten minutes of “Ruby” feel more like a cheesy 90’s sitcom than a V.C. Andrews’ movie. All that was missing was an obligatory laugh track in the background.

Fortunately for Harvey, Raechelle Banno is game for anything and is fully committed to finding nuance in even the most absurd scenes.

Overall, other than a few minor complaints, I was pleased with Lifetime’s adaptation of “Ruby.” They seem to have got the twins’ hair color sorted out in the second ‘Landry Family’ movie, “Pearl in the Mist.” And the rest of the tone of the movie is mostly consistent except for the last ten minutes which take a sudden and unexpected turn into slapstick territory.

I had begun to despair of Lifetime ever properly adapting a V.C. Andrews’ novel, but it turns out they can actually make a decent V.C. Andrews’ movie when they adhere more closely to the source material. It also helps to hire actors who aren’t embarrassed to bring the soapy stories of V.C. Andrews’ novels to vivid life. “Ruby” is definitely Lifetime’s best adaptation of a V.C. Andrews’ novel so far and I think most fans will be pleased aside from a few minor quibbles.