Boy to Man

There are a couple of scenes in Lars and the Real Girl that are just perfect.

In one, Lars (Academy Award nominee Ryan Gosling), loveable, lonely, delusional Lars, knocks on the door of his brother’s house and asks to see him and his wife. He proudly announces that he has a visitor – a woman he has met on the Internet, in fact – and asks if she could stay with them on account that it wouldn’t appropriate for her to stay with him in the garage.

Gus and Karin (Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer) are surprised and thrilled. They cannot believe Lars finally has met someone, and would be happy to host his friend.

Cut to them, realizing this woman, Bianca, actually is a life-size sex doll Lars has bought, not met, on the Internet.

It would be understated to say the stunned look on their faces is something to be seen, for he believes and treats her as if she were quite real.

The beautiful and quirky Lars and the Real Girl tells the story of a boy so tortured by his past he’s unable to be all the man that he can be in his present. His delusion doesn’t prevent him from functioning, but it is here to stay – and everybody had better accept and embrace it if they want to help him get better. This is particularly hard to do for Gus, but with Karin’s encouragement and a tight community that supports Lars, it gets easier, and Bianca becomes less of a disturbance and more a member of his family and circle of friends.

As Lars dictates the fate of Bianca – and thus his own – the people who love him begin to understand what really is going on with him; they get to know him better. In the process, he begins to discover himself, and more importantly, ease the pain he’s been carrying. Little by little, he becomes less dependent on his coping mechanism, until one day he’s ready to let go.

Gosling delivers a tremendous performance, in a careful and sincere study of angst and pain. To see him take Lars on this journey of self-discovery and put him on the road to self-realization is nothing short of amazing.

A warning for anyone expecting Lars and the Real Girl to be a screwball comedy about a man who is in love with a sex doll, though: This film has deep layers, and is much more realized and inspired than you might expect.

My Rating ****

Photo: MGM.