Film Overview
Lars and the Real Girl is a film that is utterly engrossing and absorbing to watch. It is difficult to predict where the movie is headed and yet at the same time, the story never uses cheap plot twists – the characters’ actions and evolutions all make perfect sense. It is a film best viewed with little prior knowledge about the movie (or at least an attempt to leave preconceived notions at the door.)
Lars and the Real Girl is veteran television commercial director Gillespie’s feature directorial debut. The impressive script is written by Nancy Oliver, who co-produced and wrote episodes of Six Feet Under.
Characters and Plot
Gosling as Lars is a likable but painfully introverted young man who lives in the garage of his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and pregnant sister-in-law Karen (Emily Mortimer). When Lars tells them he has a visitor, they are overjoyed – until they discover that his friend is a life-size doll, “Bianca”, that he ordered from an Internet web site. Karen calls family doctor and psychiatrist Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), who advises that they play along to Lars’s delusion.
Karen is eager to help Lars. Gus, though embarrassed, is genuinely concerned about his younger brother. The citizens of their small town, as opposed to being judgmental, care about Lars’s well-being – and thus embrace Bianca as one of their own. The compassion shown in the film is refreshing and sadly unusual in contemporary films; it is apparent after watching Lars and the Real Girl why the Los Angeles Times referred to the film as “Frank Capra-esque.”
Performances
Gosling, an Academy Award nominee for Half Nelson, gives an Oscar-worthy performance as Lars. His actions are nuanced and heartbreaking, never over-the-top. His scenes with Clarkson are some of the best cinematic psychiatrist-patient scenes, up there with Ordinary People and Good Will Hunting (though Lars is less openly dramatic). Mortimer (she always gives a good performance) and Schneider seem completely real, as does Kelli Garner as a young woman who works at the same office as Lars.
Reactions
There are some comedic situations and laughs in Lars, but it isn’t a laugh-out-loud comedy. The audience at a late afternoon showing, however, cracked up at every other line during the first several scenes. Perhaps it was the mere mention or image of the doll – or a discomfort with watching a young man in the midst of a slow nervous breakdown. The audience seemed to calm down, finally, and became involved in the characters’ emotions – accepting the movie for what it is, not what they thought they wanted it to be.
