wax ecstatic (Lars and the Real Girl review)

[originally posted on myspace on Tuesday, October 30, 2007]

What do you call it when a movie goes from limited release to mainstream, mass market release? No idea. Anyway, Lars and The Real Girl was finally released to the mainstream populous last Friday (I was a bit scared it'd never make it past it's limited release date of 10/12).

I was a bit surprised when it was showing at a chain theater (Muvico) and one of those big fancy ones at that (the Egyptian themed jumbo sized theater-dome). I was shocked when the theater was all but full for the 7:35 PM showing. And I was mildly annoyed by the group of teens in our row who offered color commentary during the first fifteen minutes of the movie (and then left, assumingly bored and off to go watch Saw IV).

I didn't know what to expect from the film. I mean, I have my love/respect/creeped-out-ness/fear of Real Dolls. The plot sounded cute, the writer sounded good, it was all very promising. But Hollywood has suckered me before, so I wasn't keeping my hopes up.

At the start of the movie, we meet shy and a smidge reclusive Lars (Ryan "So Hot" Gosling, more on him in a bit) who lives in the garage at the house of his kind of cute brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and (very annoying in the beginning of the film) wife Karen (Emily Mortimer).

In the beginning, still impressed by how many people are here (and none walk out!), I am distracted. First, by the pretty outdoors scenery (in the film, they are somewhere northern US, but it's really shot in Canada) and then by Ryan Gosling. I keep wondering, is he the guy in that horrible Amityville remake? Nope, Ryan Reynolds. Then, hmm, is he married to Alanis Morrisette? Nope, Ryan Reynolds again (side note: yahoo says that they "began dating by e-mail in 2002" – how does that work?). Later, after researching, I found out that Gosling is the reason I tried so hard to (unsuccessfully) make it through the United States of Leland and half of the reason I waded through Stay (nerdy-dressed Ewan McGregor the other half).

My point in all this – at the beginning, I was easily distracted. By the later beginning, middle and end, I was drawn into the story. It felt like these people (especially some of the ugly sweater wearing church members) were real.

Movie plot short: Lars has issues. Some unexplained childhood issues (from his mom dying while giving birth to him), some (I guess) because his brother's wife is pregnant. He orders a doll off line and tells everyone (and appears to believe it himself) that she is, in fact, real. The town's doctor/shrink (small town medical practitioners have to specialize in it all, apparently) tells Lars' concerned brother and brother's wife that he must be working through issues with the doll and to play along (the whole town eventually plays along), to let it runs it's course. Surprisingly, it does run it's course. The doll "dies" when he deals with all the abandonment/fear of talking to girls/etc/etc issues he's had.

A guy and a sex doll could have been handled so many (bad) ways. It could have easily been a Cohen Brothers slapstick. But this film is so sweet in it's handling. It's funny and cute, without being too saccharine. The treatment of Lars' possible mental illness, however temporary it was, was considerate and somewhat realistic (ok, probably not realistic that the whole town would support his delusion, but Lars' character is so unassumingly nice, you don't really second guess it). The characters have dimension (and yes, I would totally date post-doll Lars, Kym!) and the story isn't (terribly) predictable and it's certainly unique.

It's a charming little movie about love and relationships and family and psychological disorders/delusions (my idea of a good romantic comedy, just like Punch Drunk Love). And, no, it's not perfect. It drags a little. There are multiple, multiple scenes where the boom mike at times sneaks overhead and at times boldly looms into frame (fire the editing people, seriously).

Go see this movie.

The crowded theater made me think it'd do well on the weekend box office. Not so much. It did come in at number 19, making $926,675 this weekend while playing in 296 theaters nationwide (compared to the weekend's number 1 movie, Saw IV, which made over 31 million dollars while playing in 3183 theaters nationwide). BUT, Lars had a production budget of 12 million (seriously? Fire those editing people who let the boom mikes slip) dollars (production budgets in comparison: 30 Days of Night, 30 million).

And big tickets sales and profits don't make a good movie, I know, but, hell, it's a business. If good little sleeper films like this can actually get made, not get tinkered around with to fit a formula, get shown in chain theaters and have an audience (and just maybe break even)…it's just a little inspiring to the rest of us.