Victor Nuñez

The film, based on the short story by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, centers on a spinster woman who lives alone in the woods of north Florida until she is swept off her feet by an opportunistic bootlegger, Trax.

Vincent Canby writing in the New York Times called Gal Young Un "An astonishingly good first feature.

The film is the second feature to be written and directed by Mr. Nunez, the Florida filmmaker who delivered a bona fide green flash with Gal Young 'Un, his spare, beautiful adaptation of the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings story.

Ruby in Paradise was written, directed and edited by Victor Nunez, a Floridian whose previous films, Gal Young Un and A Flash of Green, showed a deep sympathy with his characters.

He is a beekeeper by profession, who raises two granddaughters, Jessica Biel and Vanessa Zima, because his son, Tom Wood, is in prison and his daughter-in-law Christine Dunford, a drug addict, has run away.

In his Hollywood Reporter review Stephen Farber wrote: As in several of his earlier films, Nuñez makes excellent use of the Florida locations.

The seaside home and Rachel's in-town residence in Tallahassee both come alive as lived-in presences ... with a string of vivid performances by actors who are not household names but who all meet the demands of their roles.

The fact that Nunez does prioritize character and performance is probably why so many actors have done some of their best work in his films; Ashley Judd in Ruby in Paradise, Peter Fonda in Ulee's Gold, and Ed Harris in A Flash of Green are just a few examples.

Operating himself and often working in the super-16mm format with high-speed film stocks, Nunez creates an intimate style filled with visual texture that comes from the unusual properties of his grain and the way it interacts with light as well as his dedication to photographing parts of America not often seen on screen — and photographing them with the same love with which he approaches his characters.