There has got to be something special about a movie that can make a man owning a blowup doll look sweet and endearing.
Craig Gillespie’s “Lars and the Real Girl” does just that.
The film follows Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling), an introverted, anti-social man living in the converted garage attached to his brother and sister-in-law’s property.
When he strikes a relationship with a life-size, female sex doll he ordered on the internet, his family is concerned with his mental health. Their family psychiatrist suggests they play out the fantasy Lars has created with the doll.
Soon the entire town rallies behind their relationship and accepts the doll as a real person just as Lars does.
Gosling’s performance blushes the viewers with his acute attentiveness to the loving relationship he has with his companion Bianca, the doll.
The sense of family and true love is tested in the film in a funny and enlightening way unparalleled in the genre of romantic comedy.
Through quirky moments of loving affection to depth of human tragedy, “Lars and the Real Girl” offers an alternative to the typical sappy love story pushed out every year.