Lars And The Real Girl

The film is set in a small snowy, presumably Canadian, town and stars a chap called Lars who is a bit of an introvert. Despite having a job in an office, he lives mainly the life of a recluse in the modified garage of his deceased parents' home where his brother Gus and his pregnant wife, Karin live. They both want Lars to be more sociable and keep trying to get him to come to dinner with them.

Lars though, struggles with social interaction and is troubled by his past, in particular the loss of his parents. Lars doesn't want to be involved with people and is even too frightened to act upon the advances of a female work colleague.

Then suddenly to the surprise of Gus and Karin he announces that he has a girlfriend. She's an orphaned registered nurse come missionary from Brazil or something like that. She's called Bianca and she's confined to a wheelchair. They are delighted until they found out that Bianca is a plastic sex doll, an anatomically correct one at that.

From this point onwards it would have been very easy to travel down the tired old slapstick comedy path but the film doesn't. In fact to our surprise the film is not a comedy at all, there is subtle humour in it but the film doesn't try to be funny. In fact at times it becomes inappropriate to even think of laughing.

Sex with the doll isn't on the cards either, in fact Lars asks his brother if Bianca can sleep in their spare room until they get to know each other better.



Instead of being funny the film becomes thought-provoking and moving. Gus and Karin take Lars to the local psychologist who suggests that they go along with his delusion until Lars himself deals with whatever is causing it. Then the film gets even more surreal as the whole town play along and Lars's new girlfriend gets taken to parties, to church, gets a job, and even gets elected to the school board. Through all this Lars grows in confidence as if this was his way of developing social skills. As his self-belief grows Bianca loses her appeal to him. Through all this, the girl at work, still despite the fact that Lars has been going out with a sex toy in preference to her, is still interested in him. So when Bianca goes on a girl's night, Lars is a little put out and accepts a date with her.

After their night out bowling with some other friends, Lars comes home to discover that Bianca is dying. Bizarrely an ambulance arrives to transport her to hospital. It gets even freakier after she dies because a funeral is held for her.

Bianca dies because her job is done, the local community have helped Lars's heal his psychological problems, and through Bianca he has discovered how to deal with human situations.



It's a highly original film that at times is too weird for words. Despite that, or perhaps because of that, it's excellent with outstanding acting performances all round. It did plod a bit in the middle and Bianca took an age to 'die' but it was still a great film.

If L was reviewing it she would dwell more on the psychological side of it, but I feel it's more of a film about someone failing to develop their social skills. There is even a dig about one of the office workers being unable to afford his own doll because he spent the money on an Xbox. Sure the film is far fetched but a lot of people have imaginary friends and 'friendships' with dolls and teddy bears when they are younger. This film just takes this all to the extremes. Lars just took a little longer growing up but he got there in the end.