Movie Analysis: Lars and the Real Girl
By Kathleen Bolton | June 30, 2008 |
I don’t know what the deal is with my Netflix queue, the cycle is messed up or maybe we forgot to return a DVD and we don’t even know it yet. Thus I headed into the weekend without a movie. So I schleped down to Hollywood Video, intending to rent Juno. People raved about it. So hilarious. Ellen Page is a marvel. The screenplay by Diablo Cody (that’s gotta be a made-up name) won an Oscar. Four stars.
I dunno. I saw it there on the shelf, and knew I’d be getting a film laced with trenchant social observations delivered by a self-consciously wiseass teenager. Juno’s the kind of movie that seems to be trying too hard to not try too hard.
To the right of 17 million copies of Juno was two copies of Lars and the Real Girl. One copy was so pristine, you know no one even cracked the case open. Ryan Gosling a.k.a Lars has never landed on my radar as a particularly talented actor. But the story about a repressed man who thinks a blow-up doll is a real girl was just weird enough to entice me.
This is the sort of movie you’ll either love or hate. Set in a frozen midwest town in possibly Minnesota or Wisconsin, Lars (Gosling) suffers from Asperger’s or some other malady that makes him so socially awkward he can’t eat dinner with his brother and sister-in-law (Paul Scheider and Emily Mortimer–both really good in these supporting roles). Lars is encased in loneliness, and Gosling’s ticks and blue-shadowed eyes gives us a sense that Lars is drowning in his inability to connect with others. Help arrives when a co-worker shows him blow-up sex dolls on the Internet. Soon Lars brings Bianca, his new “girlfriend” home. And everyone around him has to get used to it.
The movie could have gone seriously south from here. But screenplay writer Nancy Oliver keeps the story focused on Lars and how Bianca helps him process long-suppressed grief issues. Gradually, the layers are peeled back about Lars’ story, and suddenly it makes sense that he’d turn to a blow-up doll to help him find a human connection.
The movie has an organic sense of grunginess about it that I like. The only quibble that I had was that some of the supporting characters seemed pulled out of Character Archetypes 101 (the mild yet accepting priest; the sassy dowager who tells it like it is).
As a character study and a lesson into how to take a potentially distasteful story and turn it into something uplifting and unexpectedly sweet without pandering to the viewer, Lars and the Real Girl is worth an evening out of your life.Maybe I’ll rent Juno one day. But I’m in no hurry now. Lars and the Real Girl gave me a satisfying dose of quirky without ramming it down my throat. It’ll hold me for awhile.
Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.
She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.
I enjoyed it. Juno is good too. Not at all in the same category, but if you can stand subtitles I’d highly recommend The Lives of Others.
It sounds like something David Lynch would’ve written if he’d been forced to write something light. Definitely worth checking out! Thanks, Kath.
“getting a film laced with trenchant social observations delivered by a self-consciously wiseass teenager.” – Are you sure you haven’t seen Juno yet? This sounds like an accurate review of what you’ll get.
I preferred Lars and the Real Girl. It was a bit our of left field and I found it odd that given the subject matter, a guy pretending that a sex doll is his girlfriend and everyone going along with it, the film manages doesn’t push any buttons. Instead, it comes across as mild fare. Very entertaining yet mild.
I loved this movie. I’ve watched it several times, not so much to catch things I’ve missed (because it’s pretty straightforward), but because it’s refreshing to find a story that gives you hope for the human race after all. Not to mention one the kids could watch, too. What a rarity for a “grownup” movie these days. I loved the eventual reaction of the town, and wouldn’t it be nice if we could deal with hurting people this way?
I really liked Patricia Clarkson’s performance and part.
Hmm, I didn’t get the impression that Lars had Asperger’s or really anything biological or chemical (at least not once we got more deeply into it). Just assumed he was in so much pain from the “inciting event” he couldn’t handle real life until he worked through it.
Didn’t you almost find yourself believing Bianca was real, too? :)
“getting a film laced with trenchant social observations delivered by a self-consciously wiseass teenager.” – Are you sure you haven’t seen Juno yet? This sounds like an accurate review of what you’ll get.
LOL, Marina, I saw previews (on the Lars DVD) and the Saturday Night Live skit. I have a pre-teen at home, and the Juno snark could be lifted out of our dinner conversations.
Julie, I don’t know that Lars had some sort of chemical imbalance because they never address it except in the bit about him not liking to be touched. It seems like I read somewhere that mildly autistic people have problems with sensory overload, including the painful touching. So that’s what I locked onto. I really enjoyed Clarkson here, and yes, I was buying that Bianca was getting more and more real, which was one of the cleverer things about the movie.
I have had so many people tell me to watch this movie that I’m adding it to my queue right away.
Juno was my favorite movie last year, so I’d urge you not to skip it forever. It was luminous and off beat and yes, sometimes a little predictable, but the performances are worth the journey.