All Movie Guide:
Plot Synopsis by Derek Armstrong
Lars (Ryan Gosling) and Gus (Paul Schneider) are the grown children of a father who died recently and a mother who died giving birth to Lars. But as brothers, they couldn't be more different. While Gus lives in the family home and has a loving wife (Emily Mortimer) and a child on the way, Lars leads a more reclusive existence in the family's garage, hiding in plain sight of his small, wintry hometown. Painfully shy and eccentric, Lars fails to recognize that his co-worker Margo (Kelli Garner) has a major crush on him, and he picks up on a casual reference made by his cubicle mate, who mentions a website where you can order life-sized, anatomically correct sex dolls. But instead of seeing a sex object, Lars sees in this doll a potential life partner and the only kind of social "peer" he can relate to. So Lars orders a doll, whom he names Bianca, and begins treating her with utmost gentlemanly respect -- and as though she's his real-life, flesh-and-blood girlfriend. As he begins bringing Bianca with him everywhere he goes, the townspeople have to find just the right balance between supporting Lars' unusual romance and trying to introduce him to a more conventional partner. Lars and the Real Girl was written by Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver and directed by Mr. Woodcock's Craig Gillespie.
Lars And The Real Girl is a film with many attributes (good cast, pacing, location) that are squandered by certain things in the film's writing that are impossible to go along with. I am surprised that this film was nominated for a Screenwriting Oscar.
First of all, we've got a crazy guy as our lead character and Gosling milks it with back-and-forth pacing, eye twitches and all. This guy has serious issues with his family, being physically touched, and whatever you call it when you fall in love with an inanimate object (Objectophilia?). I don't understand what we are supposed to see in him in order to care for his character. Creative Screenwriting Magazine's Jeff Goldsmith asked screenwriter Nancy Oliver this question during his podcast interview: "What is the character Margo supposed to see in Lars, because (...) he has some serious issues?" And Oliver actually says, "Well, he's really cute." (!?!?!)
While this statement is astonishing, coming from the screenwriter, it makes complete sense after watching the film. This is why Lars is played by someone like Gosling and not by Dan Fogler or Jonah Hill (uh... no offense, guys?). His stuttering and crazy talk is supposed to be "cute" and his social proclivities are completely okay because he hasn't exhibited violent tendencies. Okay...
From the above synopsis:
As he begins bringing Bianca with him everywhere he goes, the townspeople have to find just the right balance between supporting Lars' unusual romance and trying to introduce him to a more conventional partner.
That isn't exactly correct. The townspeople do nothing to introduce him to a more conventional partner after he starts bringing Bianca around. It is the exact opposite of this which brings about the more unbelievable aspects of this picture. The writer wants us to believe that the townspeople are coming to love Bianca (and in turn Lars) because they want her to "help out" at various places; like at the church, the hospital, a school, as a shop window model, etc. Later, we learn in a tossed off line that Bianca was elected to the School Board (!?!) The filmmakers want us to believe that this is the townspeople's way of showing Lars love, but if comes off first as the townspeople using Bianca, and then later as something that could not logically happen.
Where is the media while all this is happening? When a sex doll is elected to the School Board? This would be one of those AP Stories Of The Year. This film wants to play this off as a tossed-off joke but it undermines the credibility the film needs when actually dealing with Lars' illness, which the film doesn't wholly do. We understand he's the way he is because his parents died, he has had an estranged relationship with his brother, he lives in the garage, etc.; but this is all undermined by the silly Bianca nonsense. We don't ever really get to see the inside of that garage or Lars living in it. What does he do in there? Why is living in the garage so demeaning?
This movie would be a lot more interesting if it was about the brother and not about Lars. The brother character and his conflict with Lars and his own wife is much richer than Lars' pop-psychology brainfuck. Paul Schneider is very good in this role and reminds you that he should be in more movies.
The filmmakers did not pull off their intended balance of whimsy and pop-psychology drama but it was nice to see a movie set in a small town (though not as small as the filmmaker would like you to believe) that really doesn't get to be a setting in a mainstream movie anymore. This isn't the worst movie in the world, just highly disappointing considering the amount of people who've drunk the Kool-Aid, and the talent involved.
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