By Sabrina Cognata
Oh Ryan Gosling, darling of the indie movie scene, how you can show up on screen and carry a movie about a delusional man, Lars, whom falls for a plastic woman. I know what you’re thinking—it’s Hollywood, all the women are plastic, and yes they are, but Bianca, is no regular woman, she is made totally from silicone and was ordered from the Real Dolls website on the internet. This, my friends is LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, & Love is in the air.
Lars is a real shut in. He’s that lady that lives at the end of the block with 50 cats and never speaks to anyone. That’s Lars in a nutshell. Lars lives in the garage behind the house inhabited by his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) & his pregnant wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer). The first quarter of the movie we determine that something is wrong with Lars. The more people invite him to associate with them the more he retreats into the silence of his own thoughts. Karin brings this up to Gus, but Gus says that’s Lars for you—he’s always been like that, just like their deceased father. Karin persists on including Lars as apart of the family, but he only retreats further, that is, until Bianca shows up.
Bianca, by the way, is a life sized sex doll, anatomically correct, of course, that Lars orders from the internet. Lars tells his brother & sister-in-law that Bianca is wheelchair bound & fresh to the states from Brazil. This is when the proverbial plane crashes into the mountain. So Gus & Karin expect a human being, but they get plastic & pretend. Gus tells Karin his brother belongs in the looney bin so together they get Lars and Bianca to visit the town general practitioner & psychologist, Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson). Dagmar tells them that this entire charade is a delusion created by Lars & the best they can do is go along with it. And then they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on & so on, until the entire town decides to go along with Bianca as though she were always an important presence in their community.
Everyone realizes Lars has gone insane, but at the same time they all embrace it. Everyone Lars knows wants to use Bianca for something, be it volunteering at the local hospital to working as a Real Life model displaying women’s wear. Everything seems to be working out for the best. No one’s even all that bothered by Lars’s plastic princess. Still, as great as things seem, eventually, Lars & Bianca begin to have problems. Bianca is always busy. She keeps a tight schedule. Plus, the obtuse interference coming from Lars’s co-worker, Margo (Kelli Garner) leaving Lars slightly jealous, something he’s never felt before.
Just like a contemporary love story, Lars’s Pygmalion fantasy cannot hold up to the fact that Bianca is unreal, will never be able to marry him or give birth to his children. The best thing Lars can do is kill off Bianca in his diluted fantasy & look to a future with Margo.
Hilariously enough, Ryan Gosling pulls off what he does best, playing an outside-the-box character, but with subtle, charming wit that makes Lars incredibly lovable. I actually love this movie and would be happy to see it again—which is daunting since I hate almost everything exclusively, damn you Ryan Gosling, damn you Real Life Doll from the internet—you got me right in my cold, black heart. What about your cold black hearts, did they get you also?