Movie of the Month : LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (2007)

THIS SIMPLE STORY shines in its ability to weave a sensitive subject without cloying sympathetic backdrop.The undertones of this movie echo with hidden messages about how we ourselves perceive and feel people, who are different. The experiential narrative is refreshingly different, enriching, and contains socially and individually important themes that really matter in today's world.

SYNOPSIS:

Lars ,a quiet and shy young man, afraid of any kind of commitment, afraid of communication and afraid of the human touch lives in a garage apartment next to his older brother Gus and his pregnant wife Karin. To share his loneliness, Lars orders a life-size and anatomically correct sex doll named Bianca from internet and proceeds to make a companion of her, taking her to parties, to church, to family dinners He is so smitten with Bianca that Gus and Karin, both dumbfounded by this turn of events, seek the counsel of local physician and psychotherapist who recognizes Lars' dependence on Bianca as a serious mental illness that will require the rest of the town to treat Bianca as if she is alive.

REVIEW:

It's been a while since I remembered a movie having a central character spending much time interacting with an object, the most memorable of course would be Tom Hanks' Chuck Noland being Cast Away on an island and finding companionship with Wilson, the volleyball. Here, Lars finds a new security blanket in his mail order sex doll whom he christians Bianca, which is highly customizable, anatomically correct, and quite attractive to boot. Furthermore, it's not just one character that gets all emotional with it, in fact, the entire small Midwestern town does, where everybody indulges Lars and his new friend, at first to curious stares, but slowly warming up to even Bianca as well, as their tender reactions now turn into immense efforts bringing Lars out of the shell.

Credit to all involved for also allowing the story to slowly unravel, explaining how Lars could have gotten to this point. At the start you just think he is an awkward man that can't deal with society or physical contact. He wears layers and backs off when someone attempts to touch his shoulder or give him a hug. There is an entire back-story as to why he shudders at the touch of another human, though, why he actually experiences pain as if that part of his body had been badly burned. Each slice of the story is unraveled as we delve deeper and deeper into his psyche during his "sessions" in therapy and his eye opening experiences seeing how much those around him care. His fear of losing those he loves is so strong that he would rather never feel the joy of it to make sure he wouldn't have to feel the loss.

Bianca, the doll, could have easily become a joke and reason for people to just stop caring for anything that was going on. Instead it becomes a catalyst for those on screen to really step up. The peculiar thing about Bianca is that there isn't a gimmicky attempt to give Bianca humanity -- no CGI special effects, no inner thought voice-over, no puppetry, no animation. She is clearly a doll, that's all -- her life comes solely from the way people go out of their way to accept her -- or more to the point, to accept Lars. The whole little town goes along with the pretense that Bianca is a person, to the extent that Bianca becomes a hit, and volunteers at the hospital, and Lars becomes jealous of her independence. Eventually it emerges that this "mass hysteria," as it were, is a declaration of love for the essentially lovable Lars—which is the thing he needed to become a whole person. And in a strange and inexplicable way, Bianca does become, if not human, at least real to the audience as well, because ultimately Bianca does have a human quality; she is lovable.

Director Craig Gillespie maintains subdued tone, hypnotic pacing, and stark wintry backgrounds help to keep the fantasy grounded enough in reality to make us actually believe it could be happening. Ryan Gosling as Lars turns in a remarkable performance that really takes this small film and does wonders with it. He is incredibly charming in his shy routine but he also comes across as the troubled soul that he is. The ending packs a highly emotional punch and this here is where Gosling really shines and makes the viewer feel his pain as his eventual cure starts to come through. Gosling has the talent to show off so much emotion without using words that I'm sure he could have been a terrific silent actor. As Lars’s likable blue-collar brother and his mightily pregnant wife both Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer are not only likable and sympathetic but make their ready acceptance of his delusional state believable. Likewise, Patricia Clarkson is wonderful, as the psychologist who treats Lars.

Lars and the Real Girl succeeds in being mature about the treatment, and having a great cast deliver the goods superbly, is already a major plus. Let not the notion of having a sex-doll on screen turn you away, as you'll be pleasantly surprised by the end results All in all a fine, clean movie that has a great message, how simply loving and sticking by a person can change their outlook on life. I recommend it highly.

Title :LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Director ;Craig Gillespie

Cast :Ryan Gosling,Paul Schneider,Emily Mortimer

Rated PG-13 for mature themes

Country : USA

Language : English

DVD Features ;The Real Story of Lars and the Real Girl

Cast and crew interview

deleted scenes

Trailer Link : www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1XxILVnt1w

Torrent File Name ;

Lars and the Real Girl [2007]DvDrip[Eng]-FXG