Lars and the Real Girl

Bianca and Lars attend church with Karin and Gus.

Director: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson
Studio: Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, MGM
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sex-related content

An unexpected delight, Lars and the Real Girl is built around a premise that sounds better suited to Marx Brothers slapstick but turns out to be more reminiscent of Frank Capra. Director Craig Gillespie elicits a nuanced treatment of relationships following a script from Nancy Oliver that Gillespie says was tweaked hardly at all.

Patricia Clarkson is Dagmar, whose medical shingle fortunately includes family practice and psych therapy.

Lars, played by Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, The Notebook), is a painfully shy 27-year-old who functions adequately enough to hold an office job but who has otherwise retreated deeper and deeper into a solitary existence, hiding away in a garage apartment behind the family home now occupied by his brother and pregnant sister-in-law - Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer in stand-out performances.

Could be the maternal instinct, but only sister-in-law Karin senses the depth of Lars's troubles; in typical male fashion, brother Gus point-blank asks Lars if he's OK and accepts the "yes" response with relief - until, that is, Lars's mail-order companion arrives.

Maxwell McCabe-Lokos is the perfectly average, porn-loving co-worker Kurt who shares a cubicle with Lars and through whom Lars has been introduced to the anatomically correct sex dolls that can be custom ordered online. In a not-so-subtle reminder that we all have toys with which we relate on some emotional level, co-workers Kurt and Margo (Kelli Garner) work through a series of hostilities involving action figures (his) and a stuffed teddy bear (hers).

Margo and Lars

Of course, it is Lars's life-sized Bianca around whom most of the relationships unfold. The humor is as honest as the poignancy, catching the absurdities without belittling the characters. Bianca becomes the bridge through which the small-town community can reach out to Lars. An almost perfectly pitched film, only heart-of-gold neighbor Mrs. Gruner (Nancy Beatty) is a little too accepting and wannabe-girlfriend Margo a little too cutesy.

Escapist fare? Absolutely. But in a world where horrors seem never-ending, Lars and the Real Girl offers role models for the goodness and understanding that can be brought to human relationships. And, gee, it's OK to leave a movie theater feeling good once in a while.

Top: Karin and Gus first meet Lars's delusion. All images courtesy of 2007 kimmel entertainment & MGM.