Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl casts Ryan Gosling as Lars, a socially-inept office drone whose unconventional relationship with a sex doll (which he’s named Bianca) forces his community to band together and pretend that Bianca is as real as Lars seems to think she is. Though Gosling delivers as compelling a performance as one might’ve expected, the film, saddled with an extraordinarily one-note premise, never quite makes it up to his level; screenwriter Nancy Oliver has infused the proceedings with a number of overtly comedic elements, a choice that ultimately feels at odds with Gosling’s distinctly down-to-earth take on his character. There is consequently very little here that’s actually funny, as the viewer can’t help but feel sorry for Lars (this is a guy who has problems talking to members of his own family, after all). The sporadic emphasis on the town’s efforts to keep the Bianca charade going proves to be the only reasonably interesting aspect of the film, although it’s clear that Gosling’s strong, subtle work here may just earn Lars and the Real Girl a small but devoted following.

** out of ****