Lars & The Real Girl

I just saw the sweetest, most orignial, genuinely heartwarming movie: Lars and the Real Girl.

Ryan Gosling deserves an award for the subtle, completely believable portrayal of a man so isolated from society that the very touch of another human being causes him physical pain. The emotions he cannot figure out how to express just seethe and boil underneath his gentle and kind face and you feel for him as he struggles to reach out and allow others to reach out to him. While the plotline seems unrealistic, the brilliance of Lars and the Real Girl is how utterly real every single character's actions are. The amount of love and genuine concern that the community shows to support Lars is touching and the most honestly caring film I've seen in a long time. It may be pitched as another one of those "indie- offbeat comedies with heart," but while that genre has grown in popularity, a lot of those films are noticably trying too hard to BE "offbeat and indie" feeling, whereas everything about Lars is genuine and humble. We're simply lucky enough to be invited into town.

You've heard me say before how I wish there were more films that had characters we could like; that there is a lack of goodness in media. Lars and the Real Girl have it in spades. You love every single person in this film, and it's okay to. You don't feel like it's a cop-out, rather, the personal growth of every individual in the community can be felt as the film develops, and that is the true plot. When each person is allowed to express themselves through this "girl," Bianca, they are allowed to reach out in ways that might not normally be socially acceptable, but they reach out and thereby grow- and it's all done out of love.

Truly hilarious, brilliantly written, and flawless acting make this film a must see.