Black & White World

Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Lars and the Real Girl is a study in suspension of disbelief.  If the viewer is able to buy into the film’s premise, even as a fable or an allegory, then the result is a charming, bittersweet tale of a lonely and shy young man, and the lengths he goes to in order to find acceptance and love.  But buying that premise requires greater faith than I have in me as a viewer, I’m afraid.

The premise is this:  Lars (Ryan Gosling) is so cripplingly shy that he can’t even bear to have dinner with his brother and sister-in-law.  He spends his nights alone living in the garage of the house he grew up in; during his days he barely functions at his cube job.  This all starts to change when Lars sends away for a Real Doll sex toy, names her Bianca, and introduces her to his family as his new girlfriend.  While he has clearly had a serious break with reality, his social skills do begin to improve, and his doctor recommends to his family that they let this Bianca situation play out for a little while.  At that point, I was on board with the idea.  But as the movie goes on, and the whole town begins to get into the act—inviting Bianca to parties, having her join volunteer organizations, etc.—it gets farther and farther outside the realm of plausibility.

The performances are what save the movie; in the hands of a lesser actor than Ryan Gosling, I might have turned off the DVD in frustration, and indeed hurled it across the room.  The always reliable Patricia Clarkson plays his doctor, which maybe serves to make her ludicrous advice a bit more palatable.  If it had ended differently, I might have been left with a good feeling about it, but it didn’t seem to me that Lars learned anything, or that his mental health improved at all.  He’s the same mentally disturbed young man he was at the beginning, maybe a little better at communicating with other people, but no healthier.  The movie was billed as a comedy in all the trailers, but it’s actually profoundly sad.