Ah, whimsy. What would life be without it? Dark, cold and cynical most likely. Even to a bitter pessimist like myself, that sounds pretty terrifying. Lars and the Real Girl, on the other hand, portrays a world that is ALL whimsy, and let me tell you, it’s a far more unrecognizable and frightening world.
In Lars' world everyone is nice and knows one another. They all go to church. They sing in the choir. It’s a place where a lonely man can pretend a life-sized sex doll is a real woman and not one person makes a mean spirited remark. As a matter of fact, the townsfolk are so unbelievably kind they too begin treating the sex doll like it’s a real person! Someone needs to make public the coordinates of this mystical village so we can firebomb it before whatever “kindness germ” they all are infected with contaminates the real world, and gross concepts like “peace” and “understanding” start to flourish.
Ahem, anyway, the story is about Lars (played with twitchy sincerity by Ryan Gosling), a introverted recluse who purchases a life-sized sex doll and pretends it’s his girlfriend. Instead of telling Lars that his paramour is, in fact, plastic and latex instead of flesh and blood, his brother and sister-in-law, on doctor’s instructions, play along and convince the entire town to play along as well. And everyone does! With little to no resistance!
And there within lies the problem. Lars and the Real Girl is so unfortunately divorced from reality that it is hard to take the drama seriously. While it contains moments of tender emotion and a few mild laughs, the movie is so bogged down by its own syrupy sweetness that it fails to leave much of an impression or even make much sense.
It’s almost inconceivable how someone like Lars, who is surrounded by loving neighbors, could possibly end up so alone he resorts to a sex doll for companionship. His sister-in-law (an adorable Emily Mortimer) and brother are constantly inviting him over for breakfast or dinner, he gets invited to parties by his co-workers and even the new girl at work inexplicably has the hots for him!
The movie is missing a much needed edge. Lars is bat-shit crazy, but the only time this is truly apparent is when he tells his doctor (Patricia Clarkson, reserved to the point of banality) that it burns when people touch him. (And even that nugget of info is quickly forgotten about.) Otherwise Lars just ambles around like a bashful, pouty Napoleon Dynamite. The movie couldn’t even let a group of hardware store employees get in a quip about the sex doll more biting then “Does she have a sister?” Har, har… har. I mean, for Christ’s sake, Lars doesn’t even try to have sex with the sex doll! It’s a SEX DOLL!!!! How neutered can this movie get!
Besides that minor improbable innocence, there is also a strange irony to the way the movie plays out that I’m not sure director Craig Gillespie (who also has Mr. Woodcock on his short resume) or screenwriter Nancy Oliver (who penned a handful of Six Feet Under episodes) intended. Throughout the movie the audience is encouraged to laugh at how ridiculous Lars looks carting around and engaging this doll as if it were real. We are being told to point and laugh at him while the characters in the movie are doing everything to try to understand and comfort him. Unfortunately for the movie, after the fourth or fifth time, the joke is no longer funny and even makes the viewer feel kind of mean spirited for laughing when everyone else is compassionate.
You might think I’m being too hard on this trifle of a movie but I’m not sympathetic. Lars and Real Girl is a blatant attempt to mine the “cutsie indie flick” hysteria of late spurred on by the success of superior movies like Little Miss Sunshine and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. However, where those movies retained some sort of basis in reality, Lars and the Real Girl is about as believable as a pair of fake breasts on a plastic sex doll.
In Lars' world everyone is nice and knows one another. They all go to church. They sing in the choir. It’s a place where a lonely man can pretend a life-sized sex doll is a real woman and not one person makes a mean spirited remark. As a matter of fact, the townsfolk are so unbelievably kind they too begin treating the sex doll like it’s a real person! Someone needs to make public the coordinates of this mystical village so we can firebomb it before whatever “kindness germ” they all are infected with contaminates the real world, and gross concepts like “peace” and “understanding” start to flourish.
Ahem, anyway, the story is about Lars (played with twitchy sincerity by Ryan Gosling), a introverted recluse who purchases a life-sized sex doll and pretends it’s his girlfriend. Instead of telling Lars that his paramour is, in fact, plastic and latex instead of flesh and blood, his brother and sister-in-law, on doctor’s instructions, play along and convince the entire town to play along as well. And everyone does! With little to no resistance!
And there within lies the problem. Lars and the Real Girl is so unfortunately divorced from reality that it is hard to take the drama seriously. While it contains moments of tender emotion and a few mild laughs, the movie is so bogged down by its own syrupy sweetness that it fails to leave much of an impression or even make much sense.
It’s almost inconceivable how someone like Lars, who is surrounded by loving neighbors, could possibly end up so alone he resorts to a sex doll for companionship. His sister-in-law (an adorable Emily Mortimer) and brother are constantly inviting him over for breakfast or dinner, he gets invited to parties by his co-workers and even the new girl at work inexplicably has the hots for him!
The movie is missing a much needed edge. Lars is bat-shit crazy, but the only time this is truly apparent is when he tells his doctor (Patricia Clarkson, reserved to the point of banality) that it burns when people touch him. (And even that nugget of info is quickly forgotten about.) Otherwise Lars just ambles around like a bashful, pouty Napoleon Dynamite. The movie couldn’t even let a group of hardware store employees get in a quip about the sex doll more biting then “Does she have a sister?” Har, har… har. I mean, for Christ’s sake, Lars doesn’t even try to have sex with the sex doll! It’s a SEX DOLL!!!! How neutered can this movie get!
Besides that minor improbable innocence, there is also a strange irony to the way the movie plays out that I’m not sure director Craig Gillespie (who also has Mr. Woodcock on his short resume) or screenwriter Nancy Oliver (who penned a handful of Six Feet Under episodes) intended. Throughout the movie the audience is encouraged to laugh at how ridiculous Lars looks carting around and engaging this doll as if it were real. We are being told to point and laugh at him while the characters in the movie are doing everything to try to understand and comfort him. Unfortunately for the movie, after the fourth or fifth time, the joke is no longer funny and even makes the viewer feel kind of mean spirited for laughing when everyone else is compassionate.
You might think I’m being too hard on this trifle of a movie but I’m not sympathetic. Lars and Real Girl is a blatant attempt to mine the “cutsie indie flick” hysteria of late spurred on by the success of superior movies like Little Miss Sunshine and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. However, where those movies retained some sort of basis in reality, Lars and the Real Girl is about as believable as a pair of fake breasts on a plastic sex doll.
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