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Tuesday, May 13th
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Movie Forums :: Reviews :: Lars and the Real Girl |
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Posted on 11/20/07
Lars and the Real Girl
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Sometimes you hear the plot of a movie in a single line and you cringe, counting your blessings that you aren't some suit at a movie studio who has to listen to such garbage, much less greenlight it and put it into the cinematic world. If someone had told me, 'It's a comedy about a lonely guy who buys a sex doll as his new girlfriend...hilarity ensues', I would instantly throw that person out of my office and have them banned from ever returning to the lot. The first thing I'd picture is that the person who came up with such an idea must want to make a Farrelly Brothers gross-out-a-thon with three dozen jokes about lubrication, at least one graphic sex scene that would make those amorous marionettes in Team America blush and plenty of Weekend at Bernie's 2 type sight gags as the lifeless prop is brought to parties and such. I couldn't be more surprised and any happier that Lars and the Real Girl is the exact opposite of every single bit of that.
The great Ryan Gossling (Half Nelson, The Believer) is Lars Lindstrom, a very quiet, lonely young man living in a small, cold little town. The depths of his loneliness aren't known by anybody; not his older brother (Paul Schneider) or pregnant sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer), not his co-workers and fellow cubicle dwellers (Kelli Garner & Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), not the fellow members of his church or anybody else in town, and not even the audience as the film opens. Sometime after his office mate shows him a pornographic website that sells life-sized anatomically-correct sex dolls, Lars orders one. When it shows up on his doorstep, it changes his life forever.
To go into much detail of what follows really spoils some of the pleasure in watching Lars and the Real Girl unfold. But when I say this is a well-crafted character piece with heart and wit to spare, I am being neither sarcastic nor hyperbolic. It's all played so straight and with such conviction that the outrageousness of the very sex doll idea barely even seems quirky after a while. There are some very hearty, big laughs in the flick, especially everybody's first reactions to the doll (Bianca is her name). But even in these comic situations, it's nowhere near as broad or crude or easy as it could have been in lesser hands. Screenwriter Nancy Oliver, a writer and producer on the HBO series "Six Feet Under", and director Craig Gillespie walk such a fine line and stake out territory that is more Bill Forsyth than John Waters, and more Ernst Lubitsch than Tod Solondz.
In addition to the pitch-perfect tone and very refreshing approach to the material, the cast really makes this one special. No one more so than Ryan Gosling, who's complex and nuanced portrayal of this troubled and delusional young man never shifts into histrionics or deprecation. Lars' sadness, his underlying issues and his affection for Bianca are so believable and endearing, the movie probably could have gone an easier route and I might have gone for the ride anyway. But then the project wouldn't have attracted somebody as talented as Gosling in the first place. Schneider and Mortimer do very well as his concerned and conflicted relatives, and Patricia Clarkson (The Station Agent, Pieces of April) lends weight and nuance to her role as the smalltown doctor who must assess and treat Lars' delusion. Kelli Garner is also terrific as the real real girl vying for Lars' attention, and she manages to do so without being phony or reduced to a cute plot device.
I could describe some of the scenes that are so winning and sweet in this movie, but it truly is something you have to see for yourself. And you should.
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