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According to this film, the people of northern Wisconsin are either the most tolerant and kind-hearted people on Earth or are really, really bored.

Lars is the type of film that had to tread a thin line to be successful. It’s a film about a man who orders a sex doll to be his girlfriend; for most of Hollywood the urge for crassness would be too hard to ignore. But it also needed to stay away from being too heavy, too schmaltzy, too gimmicky. I think it succeeded fairly well.

Ryan Gosling did not get an Oscar nomination for his work here, but he did get a Golden Globe nod. He was a contender though, and he truly makes this film. His performance is restrained, true, and compelling. The character of Lars has to spot on for this film to work well and Gosling nails it. It’s too bad Oscar eluded him this year but he must have been one of the last one or two contenders cut. I loved him here.

When we first meet Lars he’s utterly socially incompetent, unable to make normal conversation with his co-workers, fellow churchgoers, or even his brother and sister-in-law. So Lars does what any normal social deviant would do and orders a sex doll off the internet, names it Bianca, and treats it like his girlfriend. The neat thing is that the film doesn’t treat this as a move of desperation for a pitiful figure but it instead comes off as a proactive and even promising step for the sheltered man, like he’s making a gutsy move to improve his life. Lars may be a messed up guy but the film never mocks him or wallows in his problems. Read the rest of this entry »