Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Lars and the Real Girl

Movie: Lars and the Real Girl
Like/Don't Like: Love. I would recommend it to anyone, including my mom.

I was at a church pot luck (the Mormon motto should be: Come for the spirit, stay for the casserole.) and Krii was telling us about this movie and the question on everyone's lips was, "Isn't that the one about the sex doll?" And Krii's answer was, "Yes! It's so great!" So naturally we planned a movie night.

And she's totally right. It's a great movie! Probably one of the sweetest movies I've seen. And it does have a sex doll, which no doubt makes you think, "Ew." But trust me, it's not really about her. It's about Lars. In a nutshell, he buys Bianca on the internet and imagines that she's real and tells everyone that she's his girlfriend. And everyone goes along with it. After the first 10 minutes you start to think of her as a real character. I kept waiting for squirmy eye-averting type moments and they never came. It just kept getting sweeter and more charming. By the end of it I wanted to give people hugs.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had an independent film week last week and watched this one and Juno (Tim hadn't seen it), and it made me really glad that there are quirky people that write good movies out there. It was a sweet movie, and you're right, you keep expecting something really shameful to happen, but it doesn't, and I think it makes it so you need to see it twice. Now, please see Juno so you can review that one. I'm dying to know what your opinion on that one is.

Valerie said...

I actually did see this with my mom, it was her idea, and we both loved loved it.
I recently watched the dvd extras, and the screenwriter said the idea of the movie came when she wondered what it would be like if we dealt with mental illness with kindness and compassion.
A few of the actors spoke about reading the script for the first time, how they too were waiting for something overly sweet, or too much, or too far, and those moments never came.
This is the perfect antidote to Juno, which is too much, all punchline. This is an authentic story.
p.s. Ryan Gossling does an interview with Bianca, and they get into a big fight halfway through. It's just always funny.