Lars and the Real Girl
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Movie Reviews of Lars and the Real Girl
Movie Review: Lars and the Real Movie; Blow Up Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
So, from the synopsis description on the DVD box of Craig Gillespie's "Lars and The Real Girl," you may just get some strange looks from your family members if you were the one that selected the movie. Lars, a movie about a lonely extremely introverted office drone and his love for...well...a blow-up doll he purchases over the internet, might leave those very same family members to ask, "You feeling OK lately? Anything you want to get off your chest?" Just like the not so real girl, things are not always what they may seem to appear. What this movie is really about is people, family, community, and the lengths people will sometimes go to to help those in trouble out. It ends up being hopeful and optimistic without delving into sentimental and corny territory. Lars' new found love ends up being about a person taking an odd approach to gaining their life back. It's a highly recommended view.
Ryan Gosling (Lars) plays a great role and much to my surprise when I mentioned this movie to a few of my office-mates of the female persuasion, Gosling is actually a heart-throb to the lady crowd. Who would have thunk it? Gosling plays a wonderfully nuanced performance as a Northern Clime lost soul searching for his way through to human connection.
Other good acting roles are turned in by Paul Schneider as Gus, Lars' brother, and Emily Mortimer, Gus' wife. The characters both choose to endure embarrasment by pretending that Lar's new found doll of a girl is real resulting in leading the entire town's denizens to play along, even the village pastor and church elders.
Why did I like this movie so much you may very well ask yourself? Why should you watch it? Well, it's entertaining for one. And moreso, it ends up being a story about you and I, or at least folks we know. So not everyone in real-life creates imaginary friends like Lars mind you (unless you are 4 or 5 of course) and comes off faring so well as Lars. But the movie speaks of being alientated from others in a modern world of office cubicles, communication through technology and how people come up with non-conventional means to fight through all that dislocation and alienation back to human connection.
Don't be put-off by the plot line of this indie-feel flick. You'll be telling all your friends to watch it just like me. ...mmw
Movie Review: When a doll is not a doll...
Summary: 5 Stars
Are you defined by your clothes? The company you keep? How you relate to and interact with other people?
Remember Tom Hanks in Cast Away? There's that volleyball, Wilson. Hank's relationship with Wilson is real, emotional, and critical. When Wilson is lost in the ocean, the effect on Hanks' character is extreme.
In Lars and the Real Girl, Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling), a very quiet and reserved man in his 30s, lives in the garage of his boyhood home. His brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), and expectant sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer), live in the main house. Lars seems happy with this arrangement, and refuses to mix with his brother's family or his coworkers.
One day, he knocks on his brother's door, and confesses that he has a lady guest. She's part Brazilian and Danish, is in a wheelchair, and lost her luggage. Could she please spend the night in the pink bedroom? Her name is Bianca. "Certainly!" said Gus and Karin, thrilled that Lars has a friend.
Lars brings Bianca over. To Gus and Karin's astonishment and embarrassment, "Bianca" is a silicon, life-size, anatomically correct, sex doll. "My bother is insane!" Gus whispers to Karin.
The comedy in this creative film is on the town interacting with Bianca. The drama in this film is in Lars, his family, his coworkers, his church, and the rest of the town interacting with Bianca. A courageous and creative physician works with... Bianca... to get a better understanding of what is going on in Lars' mind. His delusion of Bianca's reality has a real cause, and certainly has real effects. And when his relationship with Bianca begins to affect his relationship with a very kind coworker, Margo, the viewer starts to squirm.
You so desperately want there to be a happy ending!
One of the things that makes this film work is the intentional lack of slapstick comedy. But you will laugh, and cry, and cheer, and pout, and wish, oh wish, for a happy ending.
Does that happy ending occur? Well... you'll need to watch this film!
Movie Review: A celebration of life ?
Summary: 5 Stars
I am not nearly sensitive enough to appreciate in a positive way anything at all about Lars and the Real Girl. The chain of off-the-wall abstractions is so counter-intuition and counter-experience point after point that it is difficult to attach any significance to any part of it, let alone the connectedness of any sequence of events one scene after another. Why did Lars buy the Real Girl ? Apparently not for any of the reasons hundreds if not thousands of other people buy Real Girls. Why did Lars move her in with his sister ? Why did Lars introduce Bianca to his sister as his "friend" ? What is right with this picture ? There are so many leaps in getting even this far that one must pause before bothering to wonder how it all turns out. Is there a moral here for anyone contemplating buying a Real Doll ? Is there anything positive in the development of this story that could not have been achieved without the doll in nearly every community in America ? If the doll is completely unnecessary then why tell the story in the first place ? How does this completely unnecessary story become a movie ? Does anything that happens in the movie cause us to search our souls ? If so, I wonder if the story and the movie has made any of the right choices. I think that the strongest moral value in the story comes from the example of the community rallying around the troubled Lars and accepting his "friend" into their circle. Certainly this is far-fetched but in the fantasy-upon-fantasy world of the author this has had a socially acceptable impact, restoring the troubled Lars to community-normal behavior. This is good for the community. This appears to be good for Lars, especially in the eyes of his family and friends. Bianca D I E D ! It was Lars that decided that she was sick (After finding out that the girl from the office that he had always had a crush on had broken up with the guy from the office that he didn't like.) Is that healthy ? Is such behavior something that we want to encourage ? It's just another soap opera. A soap opera with a twist, perhaps. Just a Chick Flick. Next week somebody will dig Bianca up and we will be off to the races, again !
Movie Review: Clearly the most original and loveably quirky film of 2007 in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL!
Summary: 5 Stars
This film is quite simply put a gem of writing,direction and acting.This is the singlemost unique and completely original film that has hit the screen this year.The fact that it successfully reaches and touches every human emotion available,whether through the beyond-clever script to the finest performance to be given by Ryan Gosling, is a testament to the incredible ensemble of people who made this wonderfully inventive charmer!
Lars,living in stoic Lutheran-based Wisconsin, suffers from intense social anxiety.Ryan Gosling grabs the audience with his character at the very opening frame of this movie and runs with it in a true tour-de-force performance sure to gain award recognition this year.Lars is so disconnected from society (even PAXIL wouldn't help him!) that he purchases a mailorder sex doll named Bianca! This seems a bit far fetched I am sure, but what transpires is beyond hilarious and way beyond touching on the subject of human compassion.Bianca is given a back story and becomes Lars' most trusted and constant companion.Here is where Gosling totally excels and shows his mettle as a top actor.Gosling is able to make Bianca actually come alive to the his brother and sister-in-law, to his psychiatrist (as always an understated Patricia Clarkson) , to the entire town...and most importantly to the viewing audience! Bianca actually becomes the star of this film,but it is due to Ryan Gosling's totally convincing performance that imbues the inanimate doll with a life that at first everyone humors, but eventually embraces.This film is about the intense need to belong to someone and the lengths to which humans will go to achieve connection in their own lives and to help others do so! This is DEFINITELY the Indie film of the Year.The fact that it was written by a writer of SIX FEET UNDER only further served to convince me why this limited arthouse release is so wonderful and clever.DO NOT MISS THIS FILM.DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO DO TO SEE IT!
Movie Review: One of the year's best
Summary: 5 Stars
To tell you the truth, at first I wasn't interested in seeing this movie. It sounded kinda hokey....about a guy who was dating a doll--and I mean a REAL doll. But then positive word-of-mouth got around so I decided to see it after all. I'm glad I did because I would have to say it's one of the year's best films. To me, not only was it about loneliness, but it was also about how an inanimate object can teach someone how to open up emotionally and interract in our society. This type of behavior should not be a surprise in modern times. I see it everywhere. Isn't it always easier to express and show our love for someone who doesn't talk back and cause us grief? Isn' that why a lot of lonely people have pets? As far as I'm concerned, Lars was behaving no differently than a dog owner. He had a lot of loving and caring to give to a woman but was afraid and probably didn't know how to do it. So he chose a doll called Bianca. Unfortunately, it's a sad reflection of our society on how disconnected we have become in this industrialized and computerized society. But enough with all this philosophical mumbo jumbo. LARS AND THE REAL GIRL was also REALLY funny. The performances were terrific--especially Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer and Paul Schneider. Not to sound condescending but LARS AND THE REAL GIRL seemed more like a foreign film--albeit a French film--than an American movie. You just don't see many films about ordinary people and their relationships with other people in a real and intimate way. Most American movies seem to contain either violence (e.g., NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, THE DEPARTED, etc.) or sex (do I really have to list them?). I would put LARS AND THE REAL GIRL right up there with WAITRESS, DAN IN REAL LIFE, and THE SAVAGES as some of the best films of the year. Highly recommended.