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| Director: Craig Gillespie
Actors: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, Patricia Clarkson
Studio: MGM
This item is no longer available
Rating:  118 reviews
Sales Rank: 3687
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 107 Minutes
ASIN: B001954D80
Release Date: October 14, 2008
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Showing reviews 6-10 of 118
 Hans Christian Andersen July 19, 2008
Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Those are my people! That's my home land! Every face looks like one of my family, including Lars, who looks like a goofier me at the same age. The houses, the furniture, the downtown shops, the costumes, the church, the lake - it's all museum-quality Upper Midwest. Minnesota to me, since that's where I'm from. Only the accents and the dialogue in general don't sound Minnesotan, and I kinda wonder why not.
Given that we're all Scandihoovians together here, I can make some sense out of this film by thinking of it as a Hans Christian Andersen tale, a lot like The Little Mermaid or The Faithful Tin Soldier. Bittersweet, artificial and witty, and solidly moralistic at the core. Otherwise, the improbability of the family's and town's response to Lars's delusion (that's the heart of the plot) would seem too improbable to accept, even on theatrical terms of "willing suspension of disbelief." I mean, we're a well-meaning folk, we Minnesotans, and we make trying to be nice the local interpretation of the Golden Rule, but we aren't THAT nice!
Ryan Gosling should get an Oscar for making an impossible role almost fully believable. Of course, Bianca should be a shoo-in for Best Supporting Actress.
In the end, it's "awful heart-warming", as my Uncle Einar would say, noncommittally.
 A Boy and His Doll November 20, 2007
Chris Pandolfi (Los Angeles, CA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
In "Lars and the Real Girl," Ryan Gosling plays a damaged young man who lives a delusion: he orders a life-sized sex doll from the Internet and interacts with it as if it were an actual living person. In order to help him work through this, the small town he lives in plays along, going so far as to include the doll as a member of the community. Clearly, this idea is completely unrealistic, downright implausible. But somehow, in some maddeningly unexplainable way, this film manages to be both engaging and endearing. Much like the character of Lars, we also buy into a delusional premise and see it through to the end. The film itself is the delusion, one of the most enjoyable delusions I've experienced this year.
Almost as soon as the film begins, Lars' situation is made clear--despite having a job, despite being able to function on a daily basis, he's socially paralyzed, unable to strike up even the shortest of conversations. He avoids people like the plague, and should anyone try to approach him, he tenses up and looks away, retreating into a bubble that he doesn't want burst. No one understands this better than his pregnant sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer), who tries so hard to include him in her life that it's overbearing. Her husband, Gus (Paul Schneider)--who's also Lars' brother--is nowhere near as persistent, not because he doesn't love Lars, but because he just doesn't understand him. And since Lars lives in Gus' converted garage, which was built separately from the main house, neither he nor his wife have to travel far to see him.
One day at work, Lars is shown a website that sells life-sized, anatomically correct female sex dolls. It's easy to assume that Lars has absolutely no interest in sex; I'd be surprised if he has even gotten his first kiss. We do know that Lars finds pretty much any form of physical contact painful, especially hugs. He describes the sensation later in the movie: being touched feels as uncomfortable as frozen feet suddenly warming up. We never really understand why he feels this way, but then again, we don't need to understand. It's enough to know that growing up, he was left alone with a heartbroken single father. What is important is that Lars' needs are strictly emotional; quite simply, this man is incredibly lonely.
So imagine Karin and Gus' excitement when they hear that Lars has a visitor. And then imagine their shock when they discover that his "visitor" is actually a doll. Lars, of course, doesn't see things the same way; in his mind, his visitor is a woman named Bianca, a religious, handicapped young woman who's half Brazilian, half Danish. He says that they met on the Internet. In their confusion and frustration, Karin and Gus seek psychological counseling for Lars, and he receives it under the guise of Bianca's medical treatment (she has a disease that results in low blood pressure). Here enters Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), a physician/psychologist who understands that Lars is using this delusion to fill some kind of void. She feels that only he can work through it--no one can convince him that his "girlfriend" is an inanimate object. The only thing that Karin and Gus can do is play along until Lars decides to give it up.
The rest of the film follows an altogether charming path of discovery, not only in terms of Lars, but also in terms of those closest to him (as close as they can get, anyway). The community at large begins to accept Bianca as a regular person, including her in school functions, hospital visits, and even as a display model for a department store. Watching Lars interact with Bianca is like watching a child playing with his or her favorite toy--a young imagination attaches so much significance to toys, and often times, the creativity levels skyrocket. A cardboard box becomes an impenetrable fort. A plastic car becomes an intergalactic spaceship. And yes, a doll becomes a child's best friend. The conversations between Lars and Bianca speak volumes, despite using everyday language. Example: when Bianca is given a flower arrangement, Lars says something to the effect of, "They'll last forever because they're fake. Isn't that nice?"
Gus is the only person reluctant to take part in Lars' delusion. His initial reaction is selfish: How will the town think of him, knowing that his brother is mentally unstable? But as the film progresses, Gus' emotional layers peel away, revealing shame and guilt over abandoning Lars at such a young age. It doesn't help that Bianca "sleeps" at his house, specifically in the bedroom once occupied by his mother (who is also a significant character, despite not appearing in the film). As much as Gus would hate to admit it, Bianca seems to have had a positive effect on the community, albeit an unconventional one. In an odd sort of way, she's even responsible for the growing relationship between Lars and a living woman--his coworker, Margo (Kelli Garner).
It's this sense of social development and personal growth that made "Lars and the Real Girl" one of the most unexpectedly delightful films I've ever seen. No, it is not plausible in any way, shape, or form, and if it were telling any other story, I probably would have dismissed it. But in this case, that doesn't matter--it's not dependent on plausibility, but rather on emotion and its ability to resonate with the audience. And resonate, it does. I have no idea how it achieved this, I'm sorry to say. But whatever its method, this unbelievable movie is unbelievably good, working at the same wonderful, carefree level that a child's imagination works at.
Expert Ensemble Brings a Delicate Heart to a Most Original Work November 28, 2007
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
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.
Sweet, smart and smile inducing...and without a smirk in sight January 10, 2008
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I can just hear the pitch to finance the movie if it had been the Farrelly Brothers' idea: "See, there's this stupid oddball played by that hunk Ryan Gosling -- well, okay, he's not a hunk but we'll have him work out with a personal trainer for six weeks -- and he gets this terrific idea to buy a life-size, anatomically correct plastic sex doll to be his girlfriend...yeah, you heard me right...anatomically correct. Wait, wait, stop smirking...it gets better. We got jokes out the kazoo about Gosling `bathing' his girlfriend, `undressing' his girlfriend and putting his girlfriend `to bed.' Then...what'd you say...how much do we want? Well, we estimate $90 million without CGI, $140 million with CGI. What's the CGI for? Just look at these sketches. We'll use CGI to make the plastic doll do things, if you get our meaning. What? You'll finance for $140 million with a 15 percent off-budget kickback and you want a set of the sketches? Done!"
The Farrelly Brothers, thank goodness, didn't make Lars and the Real Girl. It's a small, independent film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. It's a gentle story about Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling), a nice, delusional young man everyone in his town likes, but Lars is dealing with a lot of problems. He's so shy and withdrawn it's painful. He can't stand being touched. He spends his evenings sitting in a chair in the small remodeled garage he lives in, just staring out the window at the snow. His brother, Gus (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer), who live in the family house next to the garage, try to bring him into their lives. Lars is so uncomfortable with others it takes a lot of persistence for Karin even to get him to walk a few yards over for dinner. But then Lars by chance sees a website that features love dolls. A few days later a large box is delivered to the family house. It's not long before Lars tells Gus and Karin that he'll be by for dinner...with his girlfriend, Bianca, a young woman who is confined to a wheelchair because she can't walk, doesn't speak English and is passive to a fault. The relationship is so innocent and touching that it soon is clear, helped by the family doctor played by Patricia Clarkson, that Lars may be trying to deal with his strangeness in his own way. And, says Dagmar the doctor, it would be best to accept his fantasies with matter-of-fact courtesy and understanding. Lars is doing no harm. It's not long before everyone in town has not only met Bianca, but accepts her...and we know they are doing this because they genuinely care for Lars Lindstrom and want the best for him. As Bianca, with Lars by her side, goes to meetings and dances (she's even elected to the school board), we can see that Dagmar may be right about Lars.
What happens to Lars? What happens to Bianca? Let's just say that there is a death in the family and we later leave the movie happy and content. Lars and the Real Girl doesn't have a smirk or a smutty joke in sight. It's a touching and sweet movie, well acted, intelligently written and directed...and based on an absurd premise. But it all works.
One of the year's best February 24, 2008
Ron (Berkeley, CA USA)
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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.
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