Lars and the Real Girl, Wilson, Truman
Lars, played by Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson), is a twenty seven year old man, who lives in his brother’s garage. The house actually belongs to Lars and his brother Gus, played by Paul Schneider (NBC’’s Parks and Recreations), as it was left to them by their father, but Lars chooses to live in the garage and keep to himself much to the chagrin of Gus’ wife Karin (Emily Mortimer). Karin worries that there is something wrong, but Gus is in denial and tells her everything is okay. Lars goes to work everyday and is able to function, but when the work day is over he goes home by himself. A co-worker named Margo (Kelli Garner) quite obviously has a crush on him, but Lars is either too oblivious to see this or he chooses to ignore it because he is not emotionally capable of dealing with these feelings she has for him.
Much to the delight of Gus and especially Karin, Lars knocks on their door and tells them how he met a woman. He tells them he would like them to make a room for her in the main house because they are Christians and they are not married. Karin is more than happy to oblige. Their initial excitement and relief over learning of Lars’ new girlfriend turns to absolute befuddlement when they meet Bianca. Bianca is not a real girl at all she is what is called a real doll, a doll who is built anatomically correct for the specific purpose of sexual intercourse. If this was a Seth Rogen, Kevin Smith or the Farrelly brothers film it would have taken a much different route from here on out. It would have been funny, but it would have been filled with gross out humor and all sorts of sex, both innuendo and possibly real, or as real as it can get between a man and a sex doll. Instead this film is plays it fairly straight.
Gus is concerned and wonders if Lars needs mental help. He does not want to go along with the charade surrounding Lars and Bianca’s relationship, but decides to on the advice of Karin and Bianca’s doctor Dagmar, played by Patricia Clarkson. Lars believes that Bianca has health problems and needs to go see the doctor, but it is a ruse in order to get Lars to seek weekly treatments. At this point the viewer could have had the same reaction as Gus does initially. In my case I had nothing better to do and had Dvr’d the movie so I was willing to allow a little creative license. Gus cared about his brother and thus also decided to go along with pretending the relationship was real. Soon the whole town is interacting with Bianca. She is working at a store at the mall as a model, aka mannequin. She is volunteering at the local hospital. It is not said implicitly, but I believe she was likely used for cpr practice. She gets her hair done at the local salon and does all sorts of other activities throughout town. If it was a major studio movie it probably would have focused on all these activities of Bianca’s but instead the movie focuses on Lars and his relationship with Bianca and by proxy his relationship with the townspeople, particularly Margo.
Lars and the Real Girl is an independent film. There is no getting past that. Sometimes after seeing an enjoyable independent film I will wonder why such movies could not be released, marketed and ultimately in the end enjoyed by a mass audience. Never in the course of watching this film did that thought cross my mind. Well it did briefly, but only because I thought to myself how the audience likely to enjoy this film was a small niche. I would like to believe that if they went along wholeheartedly with the premise most people would find it enjoyable on some level, but that is not likely true. Some people just would not enjoy this sort of film, but that is alright. It is nice to know that there are filmmakers out there who are happy trying to make a good film that will be liked by a small niche, rather than attempting to make one that tries to be everything to everyone and ends up failing to please anyone.
A few movies come to mind when I think of this film. The First film that comes to mind is Castaway with Tom Hanks. Hanks has a relationship with Wilson the volleyball. Like Hank’s relationship with Wilson, Bianca and Lars’ relationship appears to be mainly platonic, although they were both awfully lonely men so it is not too difficult to imagine that there are a few deleted scenes floating around on the Dvds of these movies. Surely Hanks wishes one of those FedEx boxes contained a Real Doll instead of a volleyball.
Truman Show also has some similarities to this film. In Truman Show, Jim Carrey’s character is oblivious to the fact that the entire town is filled with actors and he is an unwitting participant in a large scripted reality show. In Lars, the town is going along with his relationship with a doll out of affection for a man who, despite having problems, is a kind and decent man. In both stories their manufactured relationships, pun intended, (Yeah I know that is a bad joke, but I could not resist.) eventually end, and in each movie there is a real woman who appreciates the real man.
There was a movie in the eighties called Mannequin which is obviously analogous to this film. In Mannequin the doll would come to life for the protagonist only. No one else could see her. She was flesh and blood for him, but to everyone else she was a Mannequin and not anatomically correct. Although Lars believes she is real it is made clear that this only a delusion. She does not appear as a real actress when he interacts with her.
In a big budget version of this film she would likely transform into Megan Fox when Lars interacts with her, or perhaps it would be Megan Fox playing her the entire time. Sure that could have its advantages, it seems Michael Bay already thinks of Megan Fox as his real doll for Transformers, but they focus on the relationships in this film instead. Also I imagine the character of Margo might have been cast with a statuesque beauty such as Odette Yustman or Amber Heard. I saw them both in movies recently and while I found it enjoyable to watch them, I think the movie was much better served with Kelli Garner as Margo. She did a good job portraying a lonely, slightly nerdy but subtly pretty woman. If she had looked like a model it would have been hard to believe that she could not have found someone more suitable than the emotionally stunted Lars. (After writing this post I saw a few photos of Garner and she is actually more attractive than I initially thought. The point still holds true. They did a good job of making her appear nerdy, but subtlety pretty. It was not one of those cases where she wore glasses to make her look more plain.) The entire cast was effective, but subtle. Gosling most likely did not get the sort of critical acclaim for this film as he did for Half Nelson, which is another indie film which is worth watching if you enjoy that sort of thing. He plays an inner city teacher who is also a junkie. (Actually he was nominated for a Golden Globe for this film.)
I can envision a scenario where I could have watched this film and despised it. The town and everyone in it is too nice to be realistic, sure there are probably people who imagine their town is like that, but it is not. Most movies would have had at least one character who is a total douche. There are no hooligans who steal Bianca to vandalize or commit lewd acts with her. No one beats Lars up or teases him incessantly about Bianca. A few people make subtle jokes that Lars doesn’t pick up on, but that is about the extent of it. Gus lashes out at Lars once about Bianca, but after Lars ignores him he agrees to humor his brother. It would have been easy to make Gus or someone else the bad guy in order to serve as a foil to the innocent, clueless Lars. Gosling could have hammed it up the entire time or the director could have gone for cheap laughs at Lars’ expense. Instead they chose to tell a simple story about love, loss and the importance of human connection. Sure I would see a gross out comedy about the same subject, but it is also refreshing to know that there is a place for a movie like Lars and the Real Girl as well.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4b3508e8-f0a8-4112-93eb-193d120cc58e "Lars and the Real Girl, Wilson, Truman")
Stumble Upon
Del.icio.us
Buzz
