Lars and the Real Girl

A certain flavor of indie comedy tends to be a litmus test, and one that I often fail. The last time I remember this happening so clearly as it has with "Lars and the Real Girl" was when "Me and You and Everyone We Know" was released. Such high hopes, such poor execution. My opinion on this film varies so greatly from those expressed by most mainstream critics that I am forced to fall back on the old pearl-clutching question: "Did we see the same movie?"

The plot, such as it is, concerns Lars, a baby-faced 27-year-old living near Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. He is the lone oddball in a town full of gentle, friendly Midwesterners who appear to have been extras on the set of "Fargo" who wandered into this film when "Fargo" became too violent. Lars has an extreme fear of being touched, and eventually customizes his perfect woman on a made-to-order sex doll website. When she is delivered, however, he initiates a chaste and hesitant relationship with her, seemingly oblivious to the fact that she is made up of almost as much plastic as the average living resident of Los Angeles. The townspeople, for some reason, accept "Bianca" as Lars' girlfriend and welcome her into the community. A forced and unrealistic ending shoehorns all of these issues into a traditional arc of recovery, hope, and the obligatory love interest.

Wow. Not since "Benny and Joon" has a film so carefully and accurately depicted mental illness. Although we are told early on that there is a history of suicide in Lars' family, no one around him insists on treatment, and when he sees a general practitioner (who is "also a psychologist"), she decides that the best course of treatment is to allow the Bianca relationship to continue until she can tease out what lies beneath it. *Spoilers ahead* During the last scene of the film I watched in disbelief as a trick that I thought "A Beautiful Mind" had beaten into the ground was hauled out yet again for another lap around the track. It is disingenuous to convince the audience, through medical diagnoses and observed behavior in the film, that Lars is indeed mentally ill, and then permit him to box his symptoms up in the ground, bury them, and ask his pretty co-worker to take a walk with him. This single flaw was insulting enough to discredit the film on its own, but there are still more issues just in case that one isn't enough for you. *Spoilers end here.*

Probably the second most fatal wound for this film is the acting. Ryan Gosling fades out of most scenes he is in, which is quite an accomplishment when sharing screen time with Emily Mortimer. The lone compelling performance belongs to Paul Schneider as Lars' older brother, who does such a convincing job as the voice of reason that we automatically take his side, and root for him when he tries to tell Lars that his "girlfriend" cannot have taken nursing classes because she is MADE OF PLASTIC. The film treats this perspective as almost laughable, expecting us to take Gosling's side, when in reality we wish someone would listen to Schneider and slap some sense into this movie.

In slight defense of this film, it could have been much, much worse. The unaffected attitudes of most bit performers save this from being a macabre or juvenile comedy, and while Gosling's performance is not particularly watchable, it pales in comparison to what, for example, Ashton Kutcher or Shia LaBeouf would do with the role. Overall, this is a bland film with nothing to particularly recommend it and many strikes against it if you, like me, are tired of the look-Ma-I'm-cured attitude toward mental illness that passes for sympathy in many films today.

May I recommend instead: "Little Miss Sunshine", "The Virgin Suicides", "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"