Review: Lars and the Real Girl

Ryan Gosling stars as Lars, who is deeply troubled, painfully socially awkward, and has started up a new relationship with a sex doll he names Bianca (!), that he has ordered on the internet. His sweet-natured sister-in-law Emily Mortimer will probably regret that Lars has finally accepted one of her many invitations to dinner, bringing Bianca with him. Lars’ considerably more stable brother Paul Schneider can barely contain his disdain and bemusement at having to treat Bianca as ‘real’. But Lars (who lives in their garage, by the way) is obviously not in a good place, mentally or emotionally, and the couple suggest he see a doctor. The doctor (played by Patricia Clarkson) explains the deal to them; Bianca is real to Lars and until he overcomes whatever is holding him back from being a normal, active member of society that he used to be, they had best just go along with the delusion. Anything else would risk an even bigger decline in his mental health. There’s really nothing else they can do except wait for whatever this is to pass. Besides, they’re in love- isn’t that sweet? Meanwhile, Clarkson finds a way to have regular chats with Lars (who hates to be touched, by the way) to help him, without him realising he’s her patient.

 

Before long, the whole small town they live in are accepting Bianca as a part of their community, some more enthusiastically than others. Everyone clearly likes Lars, and wants to see him get through this. Some like, Lars’ pretty office co-worker Kelli Garner like him a little too much, which must really be painful considering he’d much rather be with an inanimate sex doll than actual human beings.

 

This 2007 film from Aussie-born director Craig Gillespie (who went on to direct the OK “Fright Night” remake) and screenwriter Nancy Oliver (who has written episodes of “Six Feet Under” and “True Blood”) does one seemingly impossible thing and nearly achieves a second. Firstly, it takes a plot involving a sex doll and manages to create a PG-rated film out of it. I held off seeing the film for so long mainly because I felt the material simply couldn’t work in a PG-restricted environment (The Japanese certainly wouldn’t have gone the PG-route with it!). I was wrong. Secondly, it very nearly manages to take its rather bizarre (and frankly not terribly believable) premise and make it seem truly plausible. It nearly gets there, but there’s a moment or two that rang false for me. Having said that, this is relatively grounded under the circumstances, and quite smart. I still think it should’ve been a lot kinkier, but for what it’s aiming to be, if you can just go with it, it’s really something and played with absolute sincerity.

 

Some people will reject it outright, but with a few reservations, I was pretty much won over by this one. And it wasn’t easy, either. I mean, Ryan Gosling playing a guy who needs a sex doll? Isn’t he meant to be the sexiest man alive? That’s not an easy sell. Although I’m not a Ryan Gosling fan, I have to say a moustachioed, slightly heavier Gosling immediately sells his casting. I’ve never seen him like this before, no self-confidence, twitchy, socially awkward. In fact, he’s a little like another Ryan that I know. Yep, just compared myself to Ryan Gosling, and y’know what? I’m hotter than he is in this film, I think I can safely say. That’s a small victory, but damn you I’m taking it.

 

It’s an interesting character this Lars. Everyone in this small town seems to like Lars and try their best to be nice to him, but he can’t quite feel comfortable enough around people to accept their kindness and respond in kind. Yet he’s normal enough to hold down an office job and communicate when need be. He’s just awkward and it’s clearly due to some kind of trauma he has previously experienced. It’s Gosling’s best performance to date, he doesn’t look down on the material or his character at all, which is key.

 

It’s also a film that, whilst playing it all with sincerity, understands how comical this all seems. The fact that the doll looks like a hooker version of Angelina Jolie is priceless. The scene where Lars first brings her to dinner with his brother and sister-in-law is funny stuff, though there’s a very obvious pain beneath the surface that slowly reveals itself. Lars is a traumatised guy who has crawled into a shell, a kind of fantasy that everyone around him must treat as absolutely normal, lest it might set him off. Having said that, I’m not entirely certain the doctor played by Patricia Clarkson is entirely credible. The actress tries her best to make the character sound sensible, and gives a nice and rather empathetic performance, one of her best. She’s right actually, the doll is real, it obvious has a physical existence as well as the ‘reality’ Lars himself seems to afford it in his troubled mind, and so long as Lars is troubled, the doll’s not going anywhere. But as for her specific methods for dealing with this issue, yeah…I don’t know how much stock I’d place in taking it too seriously. I doubt doctors suggest indulging in the patient’s delusion, but it pretty much works here because the film is more concerned with compassion for Lars rather than judgement or deep psychological study. So I pretty much let that one slide after a while.

 

The real issue I had with the film comes later, when the townsfolk decide to humour Lars and go along with the idea that the doll is a real person. I’m an atheist and even I have a problem with a sex doll being allowed to attend church. It’s a SEX doll. Its purpose is simulated sex. What would Jesus do? He’d take one of those nails he’s been pinned to and prick a hole in the damn thing, that’s what Jesus would do. This town the film is set in is not just a small town but a religious one. If they’re not about to accept homosexuals, why the fuck would they accept an inanimate sex doll? And then the doll also volunteers at the hospital, reading to children. Wow. I get it, they’re trying to ween Lars off the doll, but the spell gets broken with stuff like this. And that’s the problem with a film that tries to make something silly seem somewhat ‘real’ or plausible, even if it’s only real within its own self-contained fictional world. The Patricia Clarkson character is at least credible within the film’s own world, if not ours. She’s as real as she needs to be in order for the story to work. But a sex doll reading (albeit a ‘speaking book’) to children? It’s the dumbest thing in an otherwise pretty smart, and fairly acceptable story. I particularly liked the character of the brother, played by Paul Schneider. He feels embarrassed about playing along and doesn’t understand what has happened to his brother. Yet he obviously loves his brother and feels really bad about having neglected him by moving away years ago when perhaps he needed him most.

 

This film could’ve gone so wrong, and I do have some reservations about it. However, it’s mostly really well-done, and the performances are spot-on. The themes may be familiar, but the film is otherwise pretty damn original and pretty damn weird. It’s not nearly as kinky as the basic premise sounds however, and is really quite a sweet and sincere film. It’s the damndest thing. Gosling is excellent and remarkably free of ego.

 

Rating: B-