For all the skill with which this movie is written, directed, and acted, it made me angry. To explain why, I'm going to have to say a lot more about the plot than I normally would, so those of you who are averse to spoilers should stop reading now.
Here's the story, as we are meant to see it:
Lars (Ryan Gosling) is a pathologically shy young man, so much so that his sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer) has to literally tackle him to get him to come to their house for dinner. It is therefore a great surprise to Karin and Lars' brother Gus (Paul Schneider) when Lars announces that his girlfriend is visiting; it's even a bigger surprise when Lars introduces "Bianca," a life-sized, anatomically correct doll.
Karin and Gus consult the town doctor (who also happens to be the town shrink), Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), who tells them that since Lars isn't violent and doesn't appear to be psychotic or dangerous, they should go along with his delusion and treat Bianca as if she were real. They get the entire town to go along with this (because they all adore Lars so much), giving her a job at the mall and even electing Bianca to the school board. Even Margo (Kelli Garner), Lars' co-worker who is somewhat jealous of Bianca and wants Lars for herself, goes along with Lars' fantasy.
Through his interactions with Bianca, Lars gradually becomes more comfortable with intimacy, eventually announcing that Bianca is terribly sick, and finally that she has died. There is a funeral for Bianca, and after the graveside service, Lars invites Margo to go for a walk, the sign that he has been healed and is ready to join fully in the world around him.
It's all very sweet, uplifting and inspirational and so on. Of course, in order to go along with this reading of the movie, you must accept the unspoken premise at the heart of the story: The desire for solitude is, by definition, pathological; happiness is reserved for the outgoing, and at the front of the happiness line are those in committed, monogamous, (and preferably heterosexual) relationships.
That is, of course, a crock, and as someone who rather enjoys spending time alone, I find it offensive. Solitary people are neither ill nor dangerous, and their preference for solitude should not be automatically pathologized. Let's take a look at how Lars' story reads if we refuse to accept the unspoken premise:
Lars is a quiet young man, fully functional in the world -- holds down a good job, gets along with people in daily interactions -- who prefers to spend most of his time alone. His brother and (especially) his sister-in-law are constantly hectoring him to join them for family functions; the old ladies at church are terribly worried that he's still single, even assuming that he must be gay.
As a gesture of defiance, Lars purchases a life-sized doll, and introduces it to his family as his girlfriend; it's his way of saying, "You want me to have a girlfriend? Fine: Meet Bianca. Happy now?"
This does not work, of course. Karin continues her nagging; she and everyone else in town continue to whisper behind Lars' back about what a sad case he is; the town shrink keeps pressing him to date a real person, and insisting that Lars must put up with the invasion of his physical space from anyone who might wish to hug him at anytime.
Finally, Lars can take no more; he announces the illness, and ultimately the death, of Bianca. He has been beaten down, and what is really being killed is Lars himself; he sacrifices his very identity and enters into a relationship with Margo. This is a relationship that Lars does not want, has no interest in, and will surely make neither of them happy in the long run.
Seen from this perspective, Lars and the Real Girl is no longer the uplifting, moving tale of one man's journey from illness to health; it's a tragedy about a young man whose family and neighbors have clubbed the individuality out of him and forced him to conform to their norms.
The movie is beautifully acted. Ryan Gosling skillfully conveys Lars' basic decency, and is heartbreaking in the final scenes with Margo. Schneider and Mortimer make clear their love for Lars, even while they are clueless to they way that they are suffocating him. Much credit also goes to director Craig Gillespie and writer Nancy Oliver for their careful control of tone; a story about a young man and his sex doll could easily have turned sleazy and smutty, and this movie never does.
But the assumptions that underlie the movie are so insulting, so uninformed, so misguided, that it was impossible for me to enjoy the movie as the heartwarming inspirational fable it so desperately wants to be; and the movie that it actually is is so dark, bitter, and painful a portrait of a soul being crushed that I can't possibly recommend it.
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