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Lars and the Real Girl

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Lars and the Real Girl
Original poster
Directed byCraig Gillespie
Written byNancy Oliver
Produced bySarah Aubrey
John Cameron
Sidney Kimmel
StarringRyan Gosling
Emily Mortimer
Paul Schneider
Kelli Garner
Patricia Clarkson
CinematographyAdam Kimmel
Edited byTatiana S. Riegel
Music byDavid Torn
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
October 12, 2007  United States
Running time
106 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$12 million
Box office$11,293,523 (Worldwide)

Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American dramedy film directed by Craig Gillespie. The screenplay by Nancy Oliver focuses on a shy, lonely, socially inept young man who develops a relationship with a life-sized, anatomically-correct doll he orders online.

Plot

Lars Lindstrom lives in the converted garage behind the house he and his brother Gus inherited from their father. His pregnant sister-in-law Karin's persistent attempts to lure him into the house for a family meal are usually rebuffed, and on the rare occasions he accepts, their conversation is stilted and he seems eager to leave as soon as he can. The young man finds it difficult to interact with or relate to his family, co-workers, or fellow parishioners in the church he regularly attends.

One day Lars happily announces to Gus and Karin he has a visitor he met via the Internet, a wheelchair-bound missionary of Brazilian and Danish descent named Bianca. The two are startled to discover Bianca is in fact a lifelike doll Lars ordered from an adult website. Concerned about his mental health, they convince Lars to take Bianca to Dagmar, the family doctor who is also a psychologist. Dagmar diagnoses Bianca with low blood pressure and advises Lars he needs to bring her in for weekly treatments, during which she will attempt to analyze him and get to the root of his behavior. She explains that this is a delusion of his own creation and for his own reason and purpose, and she urges Gus and Karin to assist with Lars' therapy by treating Bianca as if she were a real woman.

As time passes, Lars begins to introduce Bianca as his girlfriend to his co-workers and various townspeople. Aware of the situation, everyone reacts to the doll as if she were real, and Bianca soon finds herself involved in volunteer programs, getting a makeover from the local beautician, and working part-time as a model in a clothing store. Due to their acceptance of Bianca, Lars soon finds himself interacting more with people.

We learn that Lars' mother died during his birth, his father wasn't the same afterward, and his older brother left home as soon as possible. Lars carries his baby blanket in almost every scene and has difficulty with any level of intimacy, including touch.

Lars has a conversation with his brother during which he asks when he knew he had become a man and what it means to be a man. His brother apologizes for leaving Lars behind with his heartbroken father.

At work, Lars takes notice of Margo, and when she reveals she has broken up with her boyfriend, Lars agrees to go bowling with her while Bianca attends a school board meeting. The two spend a pleasant evening together, although Lars is quick to remind Margo he could never cheat on Bianca. She replies, stating that she would never expect that of him and tells him she hopes one day to find a man as faithful as he.

One morning, Lars discovers Bianca is unresponsive, and she's rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Her prognosis isn't good, and Lars announces Bianca would like to be brought home. News of her illness spreads through town, and everyone whose life has been touched by Bianca brings flowers or food to the Lindstrom home. Gus and Karin suggest Lars and Bianca join them for a visit to the lake. While the couple is hiking, Lars kisses Bianca for the first time, just before she dies.

Bianca is given a funeral. All the townspeople attend. After Bianca is buried, Lars and Margo linger at the grave site and, having come to terms with past traumas, ready to accept adult responsibilities, and filled with newfound self-confidence, he asks her if she would like to take a walk with him, an invitation she happily accepts.

Production

In The Real Story of Lars and the Real Girl, a special feature on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter Nancy Oliver reveals the inspiration for her script was an actual website, RealDoll.com, which is featured prominently in the film.

The film, set in Wisconsin, was filmed with a $12 million budget[1] on location in Alton, Elora, King Township, Toronto, Uxbridge, and Whitevale, all in the Canadian province of Ontario.

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007 before going into limited release in the US on October 12, 2007. It initially opened on seven screens in New York City and Los Angeles 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 foreign markets for a worldwide box office total of $11,293,523.[2]

The film was featured at the Austin Film Festival, the Heartland Film Festival, the Turin Film Festival, the Glasgow Film Festival, and the Las Palmas Film Festival.

Principal cast

Critical reception

The film received generally favorable reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 81% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 120 reviews,[3] and on Metacritic, the film has an average score of 70 out of 100, based on 32 reviews.[4]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times 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."[5]

Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "a gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character."[6]

Manohla Dargis of the 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 of Alexander Payne, but without any of the lacerating edges or moral ambiguity."[7]

Kenneth Turan of the Los 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, but Lars fits that bill."[8]

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post awarded the film three out of four stars, calling it "an offbeat comedy that plays as if Preston Sturges came back to life and collaborated with the Coen Brothers on an updated version of the Jimmy Stewart film Harvey. He added the script "eschews cheap laughs for character-driven humanist comedy, and is sensitively directed by Craig Gillespie."[9]

Alissa Simon of Variety stated, "Craig Gillespie's sweetly off-kilter film plays like a Coen brothers riff on Garrison Keillor's Lake 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 the protagonist also grow as they help him through his crisis."[10]

Awards and nominations

See also

References

  1. ^ "Lars and the Real Girl". Danpritchard.com.
  2. ^ BoxOfficeMojo.com
  3. ^ Rotten Tomatoes.com
  4. ^ Metacritic.com
  5. ^ Chicago Sun-Times, October 19, 2007
  6. ^ San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 2007
  7. ^ New York Times, October 12, 2007
  8. ^ Los Angeles Times, October 12, 2007
  9. ^ New York Post, October 12, 2007
  10. ^ Variety, September 11, 2007
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