Lars and the Real Girl
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Movie Reviews of Lars and the Real Girl
Movie Review: Expert Ensemble Brings a Delicate Heart to a Most Original Work
Summary: 5 Stars
This 2007 film's askew sensibilities and deadpan manner will be familiar to anyone who has watched HBO's Six Feet Under with any regularity since six episodes were written by the film's screenwriter, Nancy Oliver. However, coupled with Craig Gillespie's thoughtful and gently sauntering direction, her script has an added dimension of humanism that grounds the preposterous-sounding concept of a socially awkward, small-town bachelor who becomes enamored with a blow-up doll. The premise would seem ideal for Jim Carrey or Will Ferrell, but this is not a flat-out, slapstick comedy. It's actually a whimsical allegory that touches on serious issues related to emotional isolation and the unacknowledged inability to handle personal loss.
The story focuses on 27-year old Lars Lindstrom, who lives in a garage apartment next to his older brother Gus and his pregnant wife Karin. Although she is the one who keeps cajoling Lars to join them for dinner and get him out of his shell, it is Lars' childish co-worker Kurt who inspires him to find a safe way to find a mate - by mail order in a big crate. Enter Bianca, the life-like mannequin whom Lars fantasizes to be a wheelchair-bound, orphaned registered nurse who happens to be a Brazilian missionary. He is so smitten with Bianca that Gus and Karin, both dumbfounded by this turn of events, seek the counsel of local physician and psychotherapist Dr. Dagmar, who recognizes Lars' dependence on Bianca as a serious mental illness that will require the rest of the town to treat Bianca as if she is alive. This is when the movie charms the most as if we have entered a Frank Capra alterna-universe of unconditional goodwill. The treat is in experiencing how far Gillespie, Oliver and the cast are willing to take us in having us embrace Bianca as a vital member of the community and how events being to challenge Lars' lifelong insulation from the rest of the world.
Ideal casting has a lot to do with this special film's success beginning with Ryan Gosling's low-wattage turn as Lars. Although his emphatic blinking is a bit too theatrical a tic for such a potentially cartoonish character, the versatile actor (Half Nelson) manages to internalize Lars' pain in subtle, often painstaking ways. His quiet performance also helps make this movie much more of a seamless ensemble piece than it could have been with outstanding work from Paul Schneider (the smitten cop Brad in The Family Stone) as Gus in mercurial states of confusion, frustration and familial guilt; Emily Mortimer (the clueless wife Chloe in Woody Allen's Match Point) submerging her Britishness to bring a convincing, eager-to-please freshness to Karin; the always dependable Patricia Clarkson as the almost matter-of-fact Dr. Dagmar; and Kelli Garner (unrecognizable as the sickly Calista in Dreamland) best of all as Lars' perky, infatuated co-worker Margo. This is a film that brings unexpected joy through a level of character nuance too rarely found in American films today. At the same time, while it skirts the issue of mental illness, it does approximate its profound effects through its small, life-size moments rather than dramatically manipulative scenes. This one is a gem.
Movie Review: If Frank Capra directed a movie about a love doll
Summary: 5 Stars
This is my other favorite film of 2007 (alongside Juno). Knowing that, when I tell you this film's premise you will think I've officially gone off the deep end.
Lars is about a man who buys a "love doll" online and actually believes that she's a real woman. Got your attention? Good. Because even though that's the one-sentence description of the movie, it doesn't even begin to cover all that this movie is really about.
Lars (Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling doing a terrific job) is a nice guy and is extremely shy. He also has severe emotional problems. He finds it physically painful to be touched by others and ignores both their repeated hints that he find a girl and the subtle advances of a gangly coworker (Kelli Garner). Although he works at his anonymous computer job each day and faithfully attends church, no one is aware of just how serious his condition has become in the past few months. His pregnant sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer, who actually drives the film), has suspicions, however, and since Lars lives in the converted garage behind their house, keeps unsuccessfully inviting him to have dinner with her and his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider). In desperation, she finally tackles him in the driveway one night and insists he eat the salmon she's made. Later, Gus shrugs his brother's quirks off as "fine."
**POSSIBLE SPOILERS** (Although most is in the trailers)
A shipping crate arrives one day while Lars is at work and Karin casually calls Lars at work notify him. Lars speeds home to open it and that evening announces that he has a lady friend he's met online and that he'd like to bring her to dinner that night. Ecstatic that he's not only reaching out to them but has found romance, Karin and Gus spruce the house up and anxiously await the arrival of Lars' friend. Their hopes are dashed, however, when they meet Bianca - a life-sized, fully-articulated, silicone pleasure doll. Lars explains that Bianca can't walk because she is paraplegic and can't speak English because she's a Brazilian missionary. Since Lars and Bianca are devout Christians and they don't want to give the impression of impropriety, he asks Gus and Karin if Bianca can stay in their house while she's in America.
Terrified that Lars is psychotic, Karin and Gus devise a ruse to get Lars help. They suggest a routine examination for Bianca by their small town's lone physician - who doubles as psychologist. After interacting with Lars while she "diagnoses" Bianca, the doctor (Oscar nominee Patricia Clarkson in a pitch-perfect performance) suggests to the couple that Lars has not had a complete break. He is delusional, however, and there must be some reason why his mind created the delusion to protect him. She recommends strongly that they humor him until she can find out why. Although Gus has to be strong-armed at first, they eventually play along and soon the entire community follows suit in an effort to help Lars get better.
**END SPOILERS**
What follows is a thoughtful, charming, moving, and frequently understated Capraesque comedy that seldom goes for the cheap laugh. It gently reminds us not only of the lengths any of us may go to when we're hurting enough but also of what a family, a church, and a community can do for someone else in pain. There are a few scenes that stretch credulity even for a tale this fanciful but, generally speaking, if you're willing to buy into the premise, it can take you to a pretty nice place.
Movie Review: A miracle of a screenplay in one of the most overlooked films of the year
Summary: 5 Stars
What an amazing, delicate little movie. There are so many missteps Lars and the Real Girl could have taken. It could have quickly degenerated into a tacky sex comedy. Or an immature cheap-laugh fest. Opportunities abound for bad taste. Where screenwriter Nancy Oliver demonstrates her great sensitivity and sense of nuance is in how she handles the story's various twists and turns without every falling into obvious traps. In fact, in outline form her screenplay must have looked like the very way *not* to do it: there's little overt conflict, few missteps by major characters. Without friction, I can imagine a scripting critic saying, "There's no conflict for XX pages. You have to have a big fight. If everybody goes along with it nothing happens." Ah, yes, that's the secret. This movie, seemingly about as tasteless a subject as one can imagine, is as gentle and sweet as an embrace.
The whole thing is delightfully low-key. That's what makes it so believable (the New York Times' review not withstanding). Ryan Gosling plays Lars with just the right combination of sweetness and genuine mental feebleness that we neither pity him nor dislike him--we just see him as human. Emily Mortimer is the all-American midwest girl who in real life just happens to come from "across the pond." Her husband, played by Paul Schneider, is Lars' one foil, the one person who doesn't fall in line right away. But even he comes to understand that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith to understand someone else's personal demons.
And then there's Kelli Garner. Despite the waif-like character she plays in this movie, all buck-toothed and wide-eyed, she's actually quite the babe. If she keeps turning out good work like this, she could have quite a career ahead of her. The scene where she and Lars go bowling is amazing in everything that is *not* said. Body language--his and hers--tells the whole story. The movie is quietly and confidently directed by first-time filmmaker Craig Gillespie. He never feels compelled to push things along or kick up the drama via any artificial methods. He and the film know where they're going from the first scene, and they get their at the perfect clip and the perfect pitch. There's not a single misstep in this movie, and that's rare.
Lars was up against Juno last year for best original screenplay, and Juno--more popular and heavily promoted--won. While I enjoyed that movie immensely, Lars was harder to write, harder to direct. Emotions weren't telegraphed. Scenes did not progress along foreseeable paths, as they do in Juno. Lars has many shadowy corners around which the plot twists in subtle directions. It is so low-key that there is the danger constantly of drifting, meandering, yet this never happens. Juno, fine as it was, didn't have this intricacy, and despite the subject matter was actually structured along fairly conventional lines. But, ah, when did the Academy ever get it right?
It's sad that rich, off-beat and "inner-driven" films like this are always super-low budget, with actors working for scale, and dark horses, even at the Oscars, which are supposed to recognize and stimulate the production of these kinds of pictures. I'd recommend this picture, even if you think (especially if you think) the subject matter is off-putting. It is precisely this sort of viewer who will be most surprised. I would feel confident showing this movie in a church basement. It's a sweet little film about acceptance, maturity, and love.
Movie Review: It's Fiction and It's A Great Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
Similar to the theme that runs through Pay It Forward, this film also has a morally upstanding message for those who help others and then receive something they never thought possible: internal healing.
Although very unrealistic in today's terms, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is a great fictional take on what it would be like when an entire town gets behind one man's delusion and helps him (and themselves) get through past, present and future problems.
The man is Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson) whose isolationism has reached psychologically damaging proportions. Living in the garage while his brother and expectant sister-in-law occupy the cozy house, Lars' ruined psyche is at first a mystery to all. Karin (Emily Mortimer, Dear Frankie) is Lars' very pregnant sister-in-law who tries everything to get Lars to come over for dinner or interact in some way with the family and neighbors; she even goes so far as to tackle him in their driveway! Gus (Paul Schneider, The Family Stone) shoves Lars' problems under the family rug, saying "There's no problem with Lars." Lars' computer coworkers see him simply as an introvert, except for one cute new employee named Margo (Kelli Garner) who is attracted to him but can't seem to break through the walls he's built around him.
All of Lars' problems come to a head when Lars orders a silicon sex doll through the internet and introduces her to everyone as his new girlfriend. And it isn't a joke; it's a delusion that helps Lars build a surprising ladder to vault over the psychological walls he's built. The first to meet "Bianca" (the doll's given name by Lars) is Lars' brother Gus and sister-in-law Karin. Dumbfounded, they take Lars and Bianca to their local doctor Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson, Good Night, and Good Luck) who discovers Lars' delusion but is unsure of the cause.
The damage issued upon Lars slowly comes seeping out. Damaged by his now dead father. Abandonment/death of his mother. No help coming from any corner of his life or neighbors. It all took its toll on Lars and now it has manifested itself via a sex toy. But can the damage be reversed?
Watching this story one has to remember that it is fiction. Most mentally ill people are ostracized by their communities and getting the right help is often tough. But in Lars And The Real Girl, the entire township rallies around Lars to help him (and Bianca) become a part of the community again. The strange thing that happens is that in doing so, the townspeople heal whatever rifts exist within themselves, too.
Although funny at times, the story is more a poignant look at what could happen if people reached out and assisted those with psychological problems. The healing could be immense. And romance, a true romance, could blossom from the cure.
Movie Review: Lars Landed on My All Time Favorite Movie List
Summary: 5 Stars
Watch Lars once to marvel at the storytelling, the acting and the heart of this film. Watch it over and over again to absorb the charm, the quirk and life-altering love. At least that's my plan.
I adore films where ordinary and slightly broken people stretch and grow into someone inspiring and beautiful. This is that story, and not just one character inspires, several rise to the opportunity to become better versions of themselves.
Lars is damaged. His childhood was a shadow of what it should have been. Instead of love and nurture, he received a grieving husk of a parent. But the adult Lars is okay as a loner. Functional even. Until circumstances invade his tranquility and suddenly he's forced back into some of those dark places, back into grief and fear. But instead of dealing with those issues like most of us do, he comes up with a creative way to reach out to his arm's length friends and family. He invents a soul mate. Unfortunately, she's not invisible like a child might conjure up. "Bianca" is bigger than life in most definitions of the word.
Lars' quirky support system rallies around, choosing to make his delusion theirs. Bianca, a missionary from Brazil, here to meet Lars, her Internet love, is embraced and becomes a popular citizen. Gosling gives a stellar performance as he runs through the emotional gamut of a stunted man who has tucked life away into a spot where he is not going to be hurt and where he will not find love, the thing he needs the most.
The story unfolds as the townspeople reach out to Lars and Bianca while Lars tries to find his way out of his self-imposed prison cell.
One warning -- Bianca is a "doll" from an adult website and her original purpose isn't to help a young man find emotional healing. There are some sex/anatomy jokes, a little sophomoric humor, and "build your own girl" visuals from the website. Surprisingly, the ick factor is low and Lars and his brother are very respectful of Bianca and its obvious that Lars and Biancas' relationship is "chaste." But if you are sensitive, keep that in mind.
Others may not like the open ending. Several details are not explained. We are given clues to the reason for Lars' brokenness and why he is breaking at this point in his life. The ending is open, too. The pace is also slow. We're talking a character piece and most of those don't have a lot of intense action. I'm drawn to British/Irish films, and Lars feels very much like a Brit film. About a Boy is one of my favorites. I Am Sam is another film that comes to mind because of the complex, and real characters.
Bottom line, you won't like this film if you don't want to think. You won't like it if you have to have a lot of fast-moving action. But if you delight in characters and stories of humanity in its messiest and most beautiful moments, you owe it to yourself to check out Lars. As for me, Lars will be added to my all-time favorite movie list.