| Lars and the Real Girl | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Craig Gillespie |
| Written by | Nancy Oliver |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Adam Kimmel |
| Edited by | Tatiana S. Riegel |
| Music by | David Torn |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | MGM Distribution Co.[1][2] |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 106 minutes |
| Country | United States[1] |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $11.3 million[2] |
Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 Americancomedy-drama film written byNancy Oliver and directed byCraig Gillespie. The film starsRyan Gosling,Emily Mortimer,Paul Schneider,Kelli Garner, andPatricia Clarkson. Its plot follows Lars, a kind-hearted but socially awkward young man who develops a romantic yet nonsexual relationship with ananatomically correctsex doll, aRealDoll named Bianca.
The movie was inspired by photographerElena Dorfman’s workStill Lovers.[3]
Lars and the Real Girl was released in the United States on October 12, 2007, byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures. Though a commercial failure, the film was positively received by critics, receiving anAcademy Award nomination forBest Original Screenplay, while Gosling received nominations for theGolden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and theScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role.
Lars Lindstrom lives a secluded life in a small town. His mother died when he was born, causing his grief-stricken father to have been a distant parent to Lars and his older brother, Gus. Gus feels guilty for leaving as soon as he could support himself; Lars struggles with the loss of his mother during his birth and an irrational fear about the risk of death during childbirth. As a result, he exhibits avoidance behaviors andhaphephobia, causing social awkwardness and isolation.
Having inherited the family home after their father's death, the two brothers live on the property along with Gus' wife, Karin. Lars lives in the converted garage, while Gus and Karin, who is pregnant with their first child, live in the main house. Despite Karin's efforts to bring Lars out of his shell, interacting with or relating to his family and co-workers is very difficult for him. A colleague at his office, Margo, also tries to engage him, but Lars is impervious to her attempts.
One evening, Lars announces that he has a visitor whom he met online, awheelchair-mobilemissionary ofBrazilian andDanish descent named Bianca. Gus and Karin are startled to discover that Biancais actually a lifelike doll, ordered from an adult website, whom Lars treats as a live human being. Concerned about his mental health, they convince him to take Bianca to see thefamily doctor, Dagmar Berman, who is also apsychologist. Berman diagnoses Bianca withlow blood pressure and urges Lars to return under the guise of "weekly treatments" for Bianca, while actually analyzing Lars. During this time, Margo has begun to date another co-worker, which silently bothers Lars.
Lars introduces Bianca as his girlfriend to his co-workers and various townspeople. Sympathetic to Lars, the town inhabitants react to the doll as if she were real; however, in order to reduce Lars' dependence on her, they fill her "schedule" with social events and volunteer programs. When Margo reveals to Lars she has broken up with her boyfriend, he agrees to go bowling with her while Bianca attends a school board meeting; later they are joined by more friends.
One morning, Gus and Karin are awakened by a panicked Lars, alarmed because Bianca is unresponsive, and she is rushed to the hospital. After Lars tells Gus and Karin that Bianca is dying, Berman explains that Lars alone has made these decisions about Bianca's future. During a last visit to the lake, Gus and Karin witness a despondent Lars in the water with a "dying" Bianca.
Bianca's funeral is well-attended by the townspeople; after she is buried, Lars and Margo linger at the gravesite. When Margo suggests they catch up with the others, Lars asks if she would like to take a walk. She accepts.
Lars has aspects of a modernPygmalion, and the film adapts the legend as a romantic comedy.[4] Pygmalion falls in love with his statue of a beautiful woman: “He often felt the statue with his hands, to see if it was flesh, or ivory still, and then no longer admitted it was ivory.”[5] While Aphrodite answers Pygmalion's prayers and brings the statueGalatea to life, the story of Lars instead concludes with the doll Bianca being mourned as though she had been alive.
InThe Real Story of Lars and the Real Girl, a special feature on theDVD release of the film, screenwriter Nancy Oliver reveals the inspiration for her script was an actual website,RealDoll.com, which is featured in the film. While researching "weird websites" for an article, Oliver found RealDoll.com. She wrote the script in 2002.[6] The script was the third-ranked screenplay inThe Black List in 2005.[7][8]
The film, set in the US state ofWisconsin, was filmed with a $12 million budget on location inAlton,Elora,King Township,Toronto,Uxbridge, andWhitevale, all located in theCanadian province ofOntario.[9][10]
Film credits include Rosalie MacKintosh as "Bianca wrangler" and Karly Bowen as "assistant Bianca wrangler."[11][12]
The film premiered at theToronto International Film Festival on September 9, 2007, before going intolimited release in the U.S. on October 12, 2007. It initially opened on seven screens inNew York City,New York; andLos Angeles,California, and earned $90,418 on its opening weekend. It later expanded to 321 theaters and remained in release for 147 days, earning $5,972,884 domestically and $5,320,639 in other markets for a worldwide box-office total of $11,293,663.[2]
The film was featured at theAustin Film Festival, theHeartland Film Festival, theTorino Film Festival, theGlasgow Film Festival, and theLas Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival.[13]
Lars and the Real Girl received positive reviews from critics, especially for Gosling's performance.[14] On the review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has a score of 81%, based on reviews from 140 critics, and an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Lars and the Real Girl could've so easily been a one-joke movie. But the talented cast, a great script, and direction never condescend to its character or the audience."[15] OnMetacritic, the film has aweighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 32 reviews.[16]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times awarded the film three and a half out of four and observed, "The film wisely never goes for even one moment that could be interpreted as smutty or mocking. There are so many ways [it] could have gone wrong that one of the film's fascinations is how adroitly it sidesteps them. Its weapon is absolute sincerity. It has a kind of purity to it."[17]
Mick LaSalle of theSan Francisco Chronicle called the film "a gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character."[18]
Manohla Dargis ofThe New York Times said, "American self-nostalgia is a dependable racket, and if the filmmakers had pushed into the realm of nervous truth, had given Lars and the town folk sustained shadows, not just cute tics and teary moments, it might have worked. Instead the film is palatable audience bait of average accomplishment that superficially recalls the plain style ofAlexander Payne, but without any of the lacerating edges or moral ambiguity."[19]
Kenneth Turan of theLos Angeles Times described it as "the sweetest, most innocent, most completely enjoyable film around," "a film whose daring and delicate blend of apparent irreconcilables will sweep you off your feet if you're not careful. The creators of this film were fiercely determined not to go so much as a millimeter over the line into sentiment, tawdriness or mockery. It's the rare film that is the best possible version of itself, butLars fits that bill."[20]
Alissa Simon ofVariety stated, "Craig Gillespie's sweetly off-kilter film plays like a Coen brothers riff onGarrison Keillor'sLake Wobegon tales, defying its lurid premise with a gentle comic drama grounded in reality ... what's fresh and charming is the way the characters surrounding theprotagonist also grow as they help him through his crisis."[21]
