I just saw Lars and the Real Girl for the first time. Well isn’t this a nice little fantasy about community and healing! I mean, it’s not necessarily fantastic, in the ‘this could never happen’ sense, but its conception of a pleasant little town that rallies around a sick man’s delusion is a pretty lovely little dream in this day and age. I suspect that even in 2007 this felt dreamy and unreal, but no matter the era, this movie works because it offers such an attractive portrait of what’s possible in a community.
Lars is an odd man in his late 20s, shy and awkward to the point of painfulness, but still sweet; his loved ones are exasperated with him, not unnerved. He’s single and–as you can imagine for a single man played by Ryan Gosling–his love life is constantly inquired after. One day he breaks and brings home a Real Doll, calling her Bianca and treating her as his real girlfriend. No one can hear her speak but Lars, and his murmured conversations with her are a sweet treat (as is their fight). It’s as if we’re watching a Calvin & Hobbes pairing from the parents perspective; we just see a stuffed tiger, but according to him there’s a lot more happening that we can’t see.
This affects his family, friends, fellow church goers, and coworkers in different ways, but the fundamental sweetness of the movie is that by and large everyone accepts his damage, and works with it. Bianca gets a job (several, in fact), a doctor, and friends who do her hair. After a few “WTF?” looks, every other person in town gently encourages “Lars & Bianca”.
I have the sense a more modern movie would play things darker. He’d be undercut at work, or in church. Taunts would ring out as Lars wheels Bianca down the street. And I kept expecting this to happen. I was braced for the other shoe to drop. But this isn’t about triumphing over the small-minded; this is how a community can heal its members.
Emily Mortimer is great as Lars’ sister in law, Karen, someone initially pushing him to come out of his shell and date for gods sake. Her excitement when he says he’s met someone is adorable, painful, and quite funny, as are her wide eyes as she sits with Lars and his new girlfriend. (there are frequent shots of Bianca’s frozen doll face, and they never stopped causing me to clutch my viewing companion’s leg and laugh) Kelly Garner is adorable basically any time she’s on screen. No one does bashful comedic awkwardness like her, while also having the chops to pull off some really finely observed emotional work as things with Lars get into will-they-won’t-they territory. See, she’s Margo, a coworker with a questionable crush on Lars (though I guess, remember he looks like Ryan Gosling), and the second main plot thread—behind ‘will Lars wake up’—is about their possible romance. And it’s sweet and painful and good. Patricia Clarkson is great, too, as a non-judgemental doctor/psychologist who calmly allows Lars to just be where he is, and helps his family understand how to help him.
Clarkson’s diagnosis is simple: Lars is deluded, he’s deluded because he’s working something out, and we can trust and support this process…or we can fight it. It’s really charming and refreshing to see a movie so firmly in the “trust and support” camp, and to occupy that space with such simplicity and strength. The filmmaking here is nicely spare; scenes aren’t too talky and many important moments are given time to breathe. It proceeds gently, just like you’d hope someone would be with you, if you were struggling. It’s a lovely film; soothing, and pleasant, and not too sweet.
