It’s about time I finally saw Lars and the Real Girl, a movie that has long since reigned on top of many of my friends’ movie lists from last year. And these aren’t just anybody’s lists — these are the lists of my friends who LOVE movies. My friends whose taste in movies I actually value.
If you haven’t heard the premise of Lars, it’s this: lonely, lonely Lars (Ryan Gosling) orders a real doll (see: super-realistic sex doll, subject of this documentary) online, but he doesn’t order it for sex. He orders it because he needs a companion. In his mind, Bianca the Real Doll is just that — real. He presents her to his family (Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer) as a former missionary who speaks little English and uses a wheelchair.
Of course this freaks out his brother and sister-in-law, but based on the advice of the local therapist (Patricia Clarkson), they decide to indulge Lars’s delusion in hopes that he won’t need it forever.
You know how some movies are described as “heartwarming”? And oftentimes what the critic really means is syrupy-sweet fluff? This movie is definitely heartwarming, but there is nothing cheesy about it. It’s a great story, full of sweet and compelling characters. Lars may be painfully shy, but he’s likable at the very beginning and only becomes more so as he comes out of his shell.
Lars and the Real Girl shows how a group of people come together to support someone going through a rough time. Lars and Bianca are embraced by his family, by the town, and even by the girl who has a crush on him, played by the super-cute Kelli Garner.
Ryan Gosling is always incredible, and it was fun to see him return to playing a good guy that’s not a caricature, like he was in The Notebook. (Sorry, Notebook lovers. I liked the movie, too, but you have to admit that his character was a bit, well, unrealistic.)
The women in the film — Garner, Clarkson, and Mortimer — all do well. These are the women in Lars’s life, aside from Bianca, and he brings out different emotions in all of them. Garner is young and infatuated with Lars, accepting of his delusion but hoping that he’ll change. Clarkson, the therapist and physician, wants to help Lars not just because she is a good person, but because he brings to her mind the losses that she has suffered in her life. You get the idea that she understands his loneliness, even though she’s got the social graces to appear more normal. Mortimer, his sister-in-law, has some of the most powerful scenes in the movie. She’s the one who sacrifices the most to help Lars.
I’m really beginning to enjoy Paul Schneider, who I originally noticed in the similarly titled All the Real Girls. (Now that’s a sad movie, if you’re looking for one.) I haven’t seen him for some time, but now he’s getting a bunch more roles, including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Elizabethtown. I hope to see him in more. He’s interesting on the screen and memorable.
Lars and the Real Girl belongs on my friends’ Top 10 lists. I think it’s going on mine, too.
Rating: 
This is next on my Blockbuster list.