Sorry if this review ends up being short, but I’ve been distracted recently so it has been a while since I’ve watched this.
Anyhow, Lars and the Real Girl, is the story of a young man who has become so emotionally disconnected from the world around him that his, perhaps subconscious, need for a connection drives him to delusion. Lars is a man in his 30s who is living in the garage of his father’s former home because his brother and sister-in-law moved back home into the main house after their father passed away. Despite his coworkers’ and sister-in-law’s best efforts to include Lars in their lives, Lars continues to do everything in his power to keep himself isolated from the rest of the world. Perhaps the person Lars seems the most petrified to become involved with is Margo, a girl at Lars office who quite obviously has a bit of a crush on him, even though he almost completely refuses to talk to her. Lars emotional troubles come to a head when, one night, he knocks on this brother’s door and tells him that he has a guest coming for dinner that evening. When Lars and his “date,” Bianca, arrive for dinner that evening, the awkward tension could be cut with a knife because Bianca is actually an anatomically correct, life-size doll. As Lars’s brother grapples with accepting that his brother may be insane, things become even more difficult when a psychologist tells he and his wife that the best thing to do is to go along with Lars’s delusion until he works himself out of it. The rest of the movie focuses on how the rest of the community deals with Bianca’s arrival and how their interactions with her, in turn, affect their relationships with Lars.
Lars is highlighted most notably by the outstanding performance of Ryan Gosling. Gosling is one of the best in the business at truly getting to know his characters, and this role is no different. Not only did he seem to capture Lars’s personality perfectly, but his interactions with Bianca were seamless. Apart from his performance, Emily Mortimer, who played the sister-in-law, makes her character one of the most likable in recent memory. Her character really just seems like someone who you want to be friends (or more) with.
In all, Lars and the Real Girl, is an entertaining and emotionally resonant movie that would be perfect for a date night or any time you’re looking for something to please a group with diverse tastes.
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I really enjoyed this movie. I agree about Ryan Gosling too, he did an amazing job with his character.