Ruby in Paradise is an honorable addition to the growing genre of films about women who take to the road to find themselves, an avenue once only reserved for men in films like Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, Scarecrow, and Sullivan's Travels. Writer/director Victor Nuñez sidesteps the melodramatic possibilities (Ruby isn't toting a gun and she doesn't have to fight her way out of a possible rape), but he's also careful not to let the film descend into mawkish self-absorption. Ruby is smart, but not so smart that she doesn't fall in with two men whose intentions are hardly honorable. The film's real strength is to avoid offering her a Prince Charming; Ruby understands that she has to find strength in kissing a couple of frogs first. Even the title has a nice ring of ambiguity: What looks like paradise to a Tennessee girl who has never seen the ocean is to some eyes the least glamorous and attractive stretch of Florida beachfront property, nicknamed the Redneck Riviera. Ashley Judd has gone on to bigger things than this film, but few better.