Lars and the Real Girl

Ryan Gosling is fantastic in this quirky, silly, and a bit ridiculous coming of age story. Lars is lonely, damaged, quiet, shy, and avoids human contact pretty much whenever possible. He in a normal job, living in the garage of the family house which is occupied by his brother(Paul Schneider) and his expecting wife(Emily Mortimer). Mortimer is desperately seeking any kind of emotion out of Lars to show some companionship with his family or someone else. He ends up fulfilling her wish, only its with a real sex doll. The anatomically correct Bianca become Lars’ Christian girlfriend, sleeping in separate houses, but doing everything together when they can Lars’ brother and wife freak, with good reason. But after a trip to the town doctor, they begin to accept and treat Bianca as real and the rest of the town follows suit over time.
Ryan Gosling is one of the best up and coming actors and he does a fantastic job here as the wounded lead that deals with his problems by deluding himself with Bianca who has a lot of similarities to himself. As the movie advances we find the real reasons for Bianca while we also begin to see the real Lars come out of his shell and become a man.
Keli Garner plays the new cute girl at work and plays an important role in the evolution of Bianca and Lars. Having this be her first big role, she does at great job and is as cute as a button, and you feel a bit sorry for her as she longs for Lars’ attention.
Mortimer is good as well and is really sweet and endearing as a a mother figure for Lars that he never had. While Paul Schneider also turns in some good work here, but nowhere near as good as he was in Jesse James.
The plot might cause some of you to roll your eyes while some might laugh at every weird look shot at Bianca. The town being so supportive is quite a stretch to believe but if you sit back and just buy into it there is plenty to enjoy in this movie. While it drags it feet a bit from time to time, there are also some great comedy moments that keep the movie chugging along.
Writing this out only enhances how silly this movie really is but there is enough sweetness and some really great laughs to make it worthwhile if you are at all interested in this film.
7.25/10