Lars and the Real Girl

Watch Movies TV -***DISCLAIMER*** The following review is entirely my opinion. If you comment (which I encourage you to do) be respectful. If you don't agree with my opinion (or other commenters), that's fine. To each their own. These reviews are not meant to be statements of facts or endorsements, I am just sharing my opinions and my perspective when watching the film and is not meant to reflect how these films should be viewed. Finally, the reviews are given on a scale of 0-5. 0, of course, being unwatchable. 1, being terrible. 2, being not great. 3, being okay. 4, being great and 5, being epic! And if you enjoy these reviews feel free to share them and follow the blog or follow me on Twitter (@RevRonster) for links to my reviews and the occasional live-Tweet session of the movie I'm watching!  A love story for the modern era!

Lars and the Real Girl – 5 out of 5

This is a movie I always heard about and intended to watch but for no real reason I never got around to it.  The reality is I should have jumped on this one because you have stupidly adorable and mega talented Ryan Gosling playing a guy in a relationship with a Real Doll.  Why wouldn’t I watch this immediately?  Regardless, I finally got around to seeing Lars and the Real Girl and I was completely enamored with it.

Oh man, he's at the door again.  Will someone let Gosling out?

Lars (Gosling) is a quiet man living a life of solitude in converted garage of his family home in a small town.  His brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law (Emily Mortimer) live inside the home proper and worry about him and his lack of social interaction.  One day, Lars informs them that he’s met someone and they are shocked to learn that he’s talking about a realistic sex doll.  Worried about his mental stability, a local doctor (Patricia Clarkson) starts to “treat” the doll in an effort to get through to Lars and learn what exactly it is that he sees in it and what he is ultimately trying to find.

"She doesn't talk and never gets a headache.  She's the perfect woman, amirite?"
That's my impression of a crappy, middle-aged comic who still does bad jokes
about women and thinks they are timely.

In the wrong hands, Lars and the Real Girl could have been a one-joke bad comedy that wears its welcome out almost immediately.  It could have been a mess.  I knew the film wasn’t this but my expectations for the feature were a little tilted due to all my friends who have seen it and told me that it is a weird movie.  I’m no stranger to weird films and I like stories and production that take risks and tell tales in non-traditional ways but I didn’t find anything weird about this movie.  Sure, I will say that a story about a man forming a relationship with a sex doll isn’t something you see every day but there was something about this film that made it just as valid and grounded as anything else that dives into depths of human emotion, drama, and mental illness.

I wonder how sales of Real Girls went after this movie was made...

Sometimes we just need cuddles.

What amazed me about Lars and the Real Girl is the undeniable sweet sincerity this feature had.  This film doesn’t take any cheap shots and make mental illness a joke but rather we see the story express the issues Lars is going through in a thought-provoking and tender way.  His character has his share of detractors who see him as crazy but the story shows how everyone evolves and comes to an understanding.  We see his critics start to care for him and see the Real Doll (named Bianca) for what he sees her as.  We see his family and doctor start to understand what he is going through and, most importantly, we see what effect Bianca has on Lars and the positive change his time with her brings to him.  Everyone told me this was a weird movie but what I discovered was a story that expressed the challenges of mental illness, the coping mechanisms one will latch onto, and the beauty of understanding and importance of connection.

Seriously, this movie really made Lars' feelings for Bianca feel so sweet
and tender.  It was adorable.

The thing that adds so excellently to the themes and the overall tone of the story is a cast that is all doing a tremendous job.  Everyone is really making every character feel authentic and real but Ryan Gosling is once again proving that he isn’t just a pretty face to look at but is extremely talented—to the point it makes untalented, dumb looking guys like me irrationally angry.  Gosling makes Lars such a sympathetic character and makes the relationship between Lars and Bianca feels so legit.  The emotion he brought was palpable and you could understand the internal struggles that Lars was going through and the barriers that Bianca helped him to bust out of.  The story itself is already very engaging but Gosling helped make the entire project captivating.

Man, Gosling is so attractive he even pulls off that sweater/blazer combo.
I'd hate him if I didn't love him so much.

As for any drawbacks to Lars and the Real Girl, I really can’t think of any.  The story didn’t even have moments of drag as the plot felt like it progressed at just the right pace.  The only thing that comes to mind is that this film is clearly not for everyone and my expectations were a little on the tilted side thanks to everyone telling me that this film was “weird.”  However, what does that say about me that I didn’t find this film strange?  Anyhoo, with its tremendous performance from the unfairly attractive and talented man Gosling and just an incredibly well-crafted story, this film just proved to be moving, thoughtful and quite the experience.