The romantic comedy genre is one that almost by necessity feels as though it follows a specific template. And most of its films can be relied upon to hit most of the same beats. It’s a type of filmmaking that uses chemistry between actors and strong writing to establish quality, rather than breaking new ground, narratively speaking. But then you get a film like Lars and the Real Girl, which is strange and off-putting and utterly refreshing in how little it feels like any other film.
Ryan Gosling plays the titular Lars, a cripplingly shy young man who lives in a garage adjacent to his brother (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law’s (Emily Mortimer) house. He has a job and seems to have settled into a comfortable routine. But his family remains concerned that he must be terribly lonely.
Until one day, Lars brings home a girlfriend for the first time, and their concerns take on a slightly different tenor. Bianca is beautiful, kind, pious, and Lars cares deeply for her. She also happens to be a top-of-the-line sex doll that Lars is convinced is a real woman.
“There is no grand moment where he admits that she isn’t real — one isn’t needed.”
Unable to develop a real relationship but evidently desirous of one, Lars has conjured up a fantasy that allows him a girlfriend without any of the risk. So deeply does he believe in his delusion (and how committed is Gosling in his performance) that their one-sided interactions begin to feel real. But the camera and the other characters (albeit reluctantly) treat Bianca like a person in her own right rather than an object. And it becomes easier and easier to forget that she’s just a doll.
In a world where a lot of men with emotional problems have a tendency to use women as training wheels for future relationships, it’s an interesting novelty to see someone who is clearly not ready to become involved with a flesh and blood woman to workshop it out with a doll first. Particularly elegant is the psychology behind Lars’ delusion, and how his relationship with Bianca subtly changes based on Lars’ emotional development.
There is no grand moment where he admits that she isn’t real — one isn’t needed. Instead, their relationship is allowed to run its natural course, until one of the people involved has outgrown it. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t feel that different from an actual relationship.
It’s also incredibly touching how this small northern town rallies around Lars. They like him, and they want the best for him, so they accept Bianca into their community as best they can. It’s quirky but somehow sweet to see Bianca getting her hair down and accompanied to church. The people in the town interacting with her as they would if she were actually the girlfriend of one of their beloved friends.
“Lars and the Real Girl is an engaging, one-of-a-kind cinematic experience.”
There’s an earnestness to Lars and the Real Girl that somehow belies its presence. You might expect a film about a man who buys a sex doll and dresses her up as his girlfriend to have a certain slyness, a wink at the camera, but here it’s played without a hint of cynicism.
Although his family questions his sanity on a fairly regular basis and he does see a therapist throughout the film (a somewhat underutilized Patricia Clarkson), there’s a real sense that his family and community are helping him through an unusual emotional experience without judgment. Indeed, some of the comedy in the film comes from how quickly certain members of the town begin to treat Bianca as a real person. Everyone’s a bit strange, they seem to realize, but Lars is a good person, so why ostracize him?
Gosling’s performance here is arguably one of his best — the way he’s able to fold himself inward here is incredible. He wears several layers of clothing to prevent the world from touching him, creating a sort of bubble, but a huge part of that effect is his physical performance as well. We’ve seen a quiet Ryan Gosling before, one who is smoldering or brooding or silently intellectual, but in Lars and the Real Girl, he rarely speaks because each interaction costs him dearly. Every line he delivers shows how difficult and exhausting it is for Lars to communicate with the world.
Lars and the Real Girl is an engaging, one-of-a-kind cinematic experience. It subtly but deftly builds a group of sympathetic characters just doing their best in an objectively strange world, and despite their occasionally bizarre behavior, it never loses its respect for them or their inherent humanity.