LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
Reviewed for CompuServe by Harvey S. Karten
MGM/ Sidney Kimmel Entertainment
Grade: C+
Directed by: Craig Gillespie
Written By: Nancy Oliver
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson, Kelli Garner, Nancy Beatty,
Karen Robinson
Screened at: Universal, NYC, 10/9/07
Opens: October 12, 2007
What
do you do when you see a fellow acting mentally unbalanced on the
street? Like the proverbial chicken, you cross to the other side,
don’t you? Did you ever see an emotionally stable person talking
to someone who acts weird? This happens rarely if ever, but it
happens quite a bit in Craig Gillespie’s quirky movie, “Lars and the
Real Girl.” Aside from being released for entertainment, the
picture takes the side on the angels in pleading for not just a greater
understanding of nutty people but for treating such folks as though
their delusions and perhaps even their hallucinations are normal.
Do not ostracize, them, as scripter Nancy Oliver appears to say.
That will only make their condition worse. “Lars and the Real
Girl,” then, is a sweet sentimental and frequently comic story of an
introverted man whose delusions at first lead his best friends and
relatives to freak out, but then, under the suggestions of his
sister-in-law, the community gets together, each deciding to accept the
unusual “girlfriend” of the strange man as though she were perfectly
human.
.The action (such as it is) takes place in a small,
snowbound midwestern town where, like the customers in Cheers,
everybody knows your name. In such a place, a misfit is bound to
stand out. The title dork, Lars (Ryan Gosling), is able to
function in an office job, but he not only resists dinner and breakfast
invitations from his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Gus’s pregnant
wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer), but has a decided fear of being
touched. He is literally in pain from a simple touch on his
wrist, much less an enthusiastic embrace. His new girlfriend,
Bianca (played by Bianca), is an anatomically-correct, full size doll
that his porn-addicted fellow worker got him to order, but so far as we
know, he acts the perfect gentleman with the wheelchair-bound,
Brazilian-Danish missionary who is too religious to tolerate any
fooling around before marriage. Though rebuffing the come-ons of
his flirtatious co-worker Margo (Kelli Garner), he agrees to go into
treatment with the town doctor-psychologist, Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson).
While
we are not sure of the reason for Lars’s delusion, we suspect that he
fears abandonment by his older brother, as his sister-in-law’s
pregnancy brings to mind the fact that his own mother died in
childbirth. Bianca, presumably, will never leave him, though many
in the town who wish the guy well believe that Bianca’s “death” would
be the best thing to happen to Lars.
The idea for the movie is
wholly original, at least judging by my own experiences in the
theaters. The acting by Ryan Gosling, considered by some to be
the best actor of his generation (the Canadian born actor is
twenty-six), is on target. Too bad the film becomes repetitious
while the principal character is functioning on such a limited
level that we wonder why one live girl takes a strong, flirtatious
interest in him and why we in the audience should find a bond with the
character.
Rated R. 106 minutes © 2007 by Harvey Karten Member: NY Film Critics Online
Edited 10/10/07 by harveykarten | 
