Film Reviews

Lars and the Real Girl

• Rating:
• Director: Craig Gillespie.
• Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Patricia Clarkson.
• Details: US / 106mins (12A).

Just when you're giving out about the dire state the romantic comedy genre is in, one comes along and blows you away. Gosling plays Lars, a loner who shies away from company, despite the best efforts of his brother (Schneider) and his pregnant sister-in-law (Mortimer). They are delighted when he announces that his new girlfriend, who he met on the internet, is coming to stay. Her name is Bianca; she's a half-Danish, half-Brazilian wheelchair-bound missionary nurse. Oh, and she's a sex doll, too. His family and friends fear for his sanity but when they realise that sex is the last thing on Lars's mind (they sleep in separate rooms and it wouldn't be sex, anyway - it would be 'making love') and that his feelings for her are very real, the townsfolk eventually come around and treat Bianca like one of the girls. Just imagine that plot in the hands of the Farrelly brothers; that's the difference between a good filmmaker and a bad one, a writer (welcome Nancy Oliver) who is trying to say something new about love and a writer who gets vertigo climbing for the lowest common denominator. Lars And The Real Girl is more real, romantic, thought-provoking, heart-warming, tear jerking and a funnier romantic comedy than the recent batch that Hollywood have hocked and spat at us of late. Like listening to The Smiths, what's genius about this is that is can be a comedy or a serious drama - it all depends on the mood you're in. Gosling (who looks like a cross between Rupert Pupkin and David Arquette here) just gets better and better: the man can act more with his eyes than many an actor can with his whole body. In fact, it's the entire cast that stop the preposterous plot from falling down, and avoid the minefield of bad jokes.

Review by Gavin Burke