Romance Season: Lars and the Real Girl (Dir. Craig Gillespie, 1h 46, 2007)

The offbeat romance has long been a staple of cinema; but for every Harry Met Sally or I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, there are dozens of Manic Dream Pixie Girl (or occasionally boy, or even more occasionally, monster/robot/etc.) meets generic boring/quirky protagonist whose life is in need of a boost. These run from the muddled Neil Gaiman short story adaption How to Talk to Girls at Parties to the execrable Elizabethtown (which launched the MDPG concept into the public conscience), to the unlikeable and overly maudlin adaptions of the works of John Green that seem to be stuffed with various stripes of this stereotype.

Sure, cinema occasionally gets them right, utterly subvert the trope, or throw a veneer of unreliable narration over the top, but cinema is littered with off-beat, Allen-esque or Andersonic romantic comedies of messy, immature or wilfully childish protagonists who are rescued by the love of a woman who somehow stoops to their level to rescue and redeem them from themselves at no personal cost to the hapless male protagonist.

At first glance, from concept alone, Lars and the Real Girl seems to be not only a film that takes this to the logical extreme with an inanimate sexdoll being the redemption of our hero, but a film that’s entire concept seems to be preordained for awkward, sub-frat comedy, laughing at the repressed, unhappy young protagonist of the piece, Lars, as his fumbling attempts to live the romantic life of a couple with a sexdoll is milked mercilessly for its crass comedic content. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like 2013's Her, in which an equally introverted and fragile protagonist falls in love with an artificial intelligence that slowly gives its lover the confidence to return to the world they previously isolated themselves from, Lars and the Real Girl is sweetly charming, surprisingly moving, and plays its surreal situation for pathos before laughs.

Much of the success of this film lies on the shoulders of Ryan Gosling; whilst, by the time that he played Lars, he had already been nominated for an Oscar for his drug-addled wreck of a teacher in Half Nelson, Gosling almost disappears into Lars, into this sense of this sweet, but socially inept and emotionally repressed young man. The opening scenes perfectly illustrate Lars' personality, from his isolation in the garage of his family house, to the awkward social interaction with his stepsister Karin (Emily Mortimer), despite his overprotective insistence that she use his treasured blanket to keep warm, to his sweet, but awkward relationship with those around him, from fellow church-goers to his colleagues at his job.

Gosling plays Lars as stunted, stymied by both the loss of his mother, whose death at his birth is echoed in the backstory he generates for the personality he places upon the doll, Bianca, and the distant father, whose distance from Lars, and his older brother Gus (Paul Schneider) have clearly left their effect on the younger boy. Thus, by the time that the crate containing Bianca arrives at Lars' garage, we have a sense of Lars as a character, from his stunted small-talk and lack of connection with his (equally eccentric) colleagues who squabble over action figures and soft toys, to his distant relationship with his brother and his wife, and his church, all of which is shown, rather than told, in beautifully shot, quiet vignettes.

Bianca, though, is where this film shows its heart. Not since Cast Away's Wilson has a film's emotional centre pivoted so much around an inanimate object that, in essence, reflects what its companion imprints upon it. Her appearance, certainly, whilst played for initial laughs at the pure surreal nature of the visual of, for all intents and purposes, a sex doll playing partner to Gosling, as he explains her backstory and sudden arrival, slowly gathers pathos as we see both Karin and Gus's reactions. Gus' reaction, of the sceptic, realising that his brother has, in his words, "gone totally nuts", lingers for much of the first half of the film, whilst Karin is far more accepting, the subsequent dinner scene transforming slowly from farce to disturbing and surreal, to something altogether more nuanced.

Gillespie, long a master of making us root for the underdog, even if this comes in the form of the infamous Tonya Harding, and Nancy Oliver's script make this sequence where, for all intents and purposes, Gosling's character has made an imaginary girlfriend out of a sex doll, this great moment of pathos and charm, the gentle Lars concerned more about his girlfriend's well-being and comfort rather than his brother and his spouse's utter confusion. Perhaps because we already have a sense of the isolation, the sadness that Lars feels, as well as his inability to connect with those around him, by making this snap decision and forming a bond with someone, even if they are an inanimate thing of plastic and artificial hair, he is at least trying. If nothing else, the fact that this film hinges on the believability of this at once absurd and affecting romance between Lars and Bianca, through its highs and lows, and that we believe that this relationship is therapeutic and in short something that matters for Lars and those around him is nothing short of a triumph.

This sequence, in short, is practically the film in miniature, as we see this mismatched duo head out into the world, together with Karin and Gus. These scenes lead from the hospital, where Bianca's medical care covers Dr Berman's (Patricia Clarkson) attempts to find the cause of Lars' delusions, and its linkages to his underlying condition, to Lars introducing Bianca to the rest of the town, from his church, where she sits silent in the background of shots, to a party where his colleagues are slowly introduced to Bianca. All of these would be either crass or silly in the wrong hands, but through the film's quality, through its care to treat, outlandish as she is, as a character, rather than a thing, it takes on a sweet, and surprisingly genuine quality, where we see Bianca, as much as Lars, grow as a character, slowly becoming part of the village; through her, we see Lars begin to open up, becoming part of the community, their concern for him growing into a genuine affection for this couple.

It's here that the film takes a turn, as Lars becomes frustrated at the sudden popularity of Bianca, and the film dives into the toxic masculinity of his and Gus' father, in Gus's sense of guilt at abandoning Lars to their father, and his apology for being selfish only further improves Lars' relationship, not just with Bianca and those around him. Alongside this, his friendship with the equally offbeat Margo (Kelli Garner) gathers pace, his frustration at her ending up with a boyfriend, even though he has Bianca, further depicts a man slowly becoming more confident in himself, his relief once she breaks up with him palpable.

It is with her that, in a scene that sees him begin to relax around others, he finally seems to make a step towards a recovery, finally taking down at least part of his facade in the form of the gloves he wears to protect himself, as he manages to take a hand. The film gives this, and the eventual departure of Bianca, in the film's most powerful moments, an undeniable gravitas-her loss is treated with true respect, true weight, and, most importantly, it feels like a true loss. But it is a loss tinged with hope-after all, as Berman states, the ailing and "death" of Bianca is entirely controlled by Lars, and letting go of her, whilst sorrowful, is cathartic, important, vital.

Lars and the Real Girl is an intriguing balancing act of a film, depicting a man dealing with the damage left by his father, taking solace in a sex doll to begin his reconnection with people, without the film descending into puerile baseness, or mocking commentary. Lars' relationship is real, and respected, and we feel his growth, his loss, as strongly as any flesh and blood woman of cinema. Topped by Gosling's fragile, gentle, stirring performance, we see Lars step out of himself in a film that tells, in broad, sweet brushstrokes, a modern quasi-fairytale through his relationship with Bianca in what may be one of cinema's strangest, but sweetest, romances.

 Rating: Highly Recommended