Movie: Lars and the Real Girl

This weekend Netflix finally bestowed upon my mailbox the DVD version of Lars and the Real Girl. I had been looking forward to viewing this film since the first time I saw the trailer a few months back and giggled with glee as I fired it up. I love a movie with interesting but unusual characters and a non-traditional story. To say that LatRG has an nontraditional plot is more than a little bit of an understatement.

Lars and the Real Girl is the tale of a young man that lives on the edge of society emotionally. Lars, played perfectly by Ryan Gossling, lives in a small garage while his brother and his brother’s wife live in the main house in what appears to be Michigan. He has a normal job and attends church every Sunday, but his interactions with people are limited by his own idiosyncrasies and insecurities. He loathes physical contact and at best can stumble through an awkward conversation with female co-workers. Lars cannot even join his family in the main house for a meal without visible anxiety.

Things take a turn for the bizarre when one cold day a UPS truck delivers a large nondescript box to Lars’s door. We quickly learn what was inside: a RealGirl sex doll. Now, before you are completely freaked out and questioning my choice in films, let me jump ahead and say that it is not what it seems. What has really happened is that Lars has had a delusional break and believes the girl is an actual real woman he has met online. The rest of the movie is how his family and the community respond to his new ‘friend’. This is not an American Pie style sex comedy. In fact, it isn't a sex comedy at all.

I won’t go into a lot of detail so as not to ruin the fun of the movie, but I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say that it is quite humorous and sad at the same time to see the way that Lars interacts with his ‘girlfriend’ much better than the way he interacts with the real people around him.

One of the most obvious questions that this all brought to mind as how would I react if one of my friends or family members acted in a similar way. I don’t even mean necessarily the exact same thing but more if they adopted some eccentricity or other behavior as a result of mental illness that was, frankly, embarrassing to myself. Pretty close to the start of the movie his brother and sister-in-law are presenting the situation to the town priest and what I assume are other leaders in the church. After some debate the priest says the now cliché, “What would Jesus do?” What would He do? What should I do? What would I do if it was someone at my church? Do I play along the way it is suggested? At what point am I no longer being supportive and become patronizing or even mocking, even by accident? I don’t know exactly. I think it is a really interesting question, though, and one that has sprung to my mind a few times the last few days.

Despite how the plot sounds creepy on the surface, I can assure you that you will find little to no ‘ick’-factor in this movie. In the end, it is a movie about relationships in a family as well as a community. I highly recommend this movie to anyone willing to give it chance, although I realize that some people won’t like the more subtle comedy of the movie as opposed to an in your face, over the top comedy. To each his own taste – that is why the there are so many different genres. I do hope that you will think about checking out this movie. PG-13, some language.



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