Norman Bates and the Real Girl
Last night I happened to see Lars and the Real Girl, which engaged and delighted me in a completely unintentional way. The supporting cast -- the adorable Emily Mortimer and Kelli Garner; the great Paul Schneider; the charming-even-when-miscast Patricia Clarkson -- is perfect, but the movie's premise just seems so fascinatingly miscalculated. I felt (although in fairness the friend I saw it with disagreed; she saw it as magic realism) that it was the newest entry in a small subgenre of recent movies: the Endearing Potential Serial Killer Comedy.
The only other entry in this subgenre is The 40 Year Old Virgin. I laughed about one and a half times when I watched The 40 Year Old Virgin... the jokes seemed lame and forced and the writing was amateurish, but the big problem was that Steve Carell's character just seemed so fucking creepy. That weird, strained stare... that rabbity way of speaking... those little dolls all over his room. I had the distinct feeling that if he got pushed just far enough, he'd snap and put someone in a crawlspace.
Same with Lars in Lars and the Real Girl. So Lars is so uncomfortable with human contact that he buys a life-size sex doll made of silicon and weighing as much as a real human to be his girlfriend? Okay. And he brings it to dinner and props it up at the table and calmly talks to it as if it's talking back, to the alarm of the other dinner guests? Okay. And everyone in the small town decides to pretend that the doll is a real person, because they love Lars so much and humoring his delusion is therapeutic? And... you've lost me!
Some serious suspension of disbelief would be required for me to accept the idea that the community would be indulgent of Lars's delusion rather than openly scornful and creeped out. I don't buy it that any but the most neglectful mother would let her kid sit on the silicone doll's lap, nor do I accept a teacher would let the doll "read" to her first grade class (a book propped in its lap, a tape recorder reading the words). And I certainly don't believe that Lars's sweet, cute coworker (played by Garner) would still have a crush on him after seeing him carrying around, and talking to, a silicone sex doll that he refers to as "my girlfriend."
(It's the more extreme version of the suspension-of-disbelief problem, already written about pretty much everywhere, that plagues a lot of recent comedies. Catherine Keener and Steve Carell in 40 Year Old Virgin? Dimly plausible... but a stretch. Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up? Good movie, but no way. Emma Stone and the obese, sociopathic Jonah Hill character in Superbad? NEVER. Judd Apatow, please, no more.)
Anyway. The movie treats Lars (played by Ryan Gosling with a lot of blinking and forehead veins) as if he's just a little shy, but the hilarious thing is that he's clearly insane and dangerous. If you're unhinged enough to believe that a mannequin is actually a human, then you're probably unhinged enough to convince yourself that a human is actually a mannequin. And then what would be the problem with, say, chopping its head off?
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I wouldn't consider this movie magic realism because the whole town would have to accept the doll as real, which they clearly don't. However, regarding suspending your disbelief, I think you might just have to suspend your disbelief. Did you also not enjoy "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Science of Sleep"?
Side note: Michel Gondry is an amazingly genius amazing person genius.
You mean Ed Scissorhands wasn't real?
From reading your review and just seeing the trailer (GAWD, I'd never PAY to see the movie now), I don't think those poor small-town denizens were humoring him out of *love*.
It sounds like they're afraid that if they don't humor his fantasy, they'll wind up among his victims.
it's become the most boring of television and film cliches that a quiet or shy person has to be a serial killer or have some dark secret. Congratulations on making that 'leap', Nick. I'm glad the "Lars" filmmakers didn't fill the need to repeat that cliche.
next thing you're going to tell me is George Bailey really wasn't visited by an angel...
"And then what would be the problem with, say, chopping its head off?"
That's a different movie and a different character. On some level, obviously, Lars knows his doll is not human but it's a rehearsal of sorts for the real human contact he obviously craves.
Your review and not the movie is the thing that strikes me as trying too hard to be provocative and outside the box.
Lars is not "clearly insane and dangerous"; Lars is completely benign. He develops and resolves a delusion in a very novel way. Normally I eschew the small independent move whose quirkiness is an uncomfortable artifice but this one I give an A+.
I saw it more as a parable about objectification and true caring. The phobic behavior of Lars, the lead character, didn't mean that he would harm anyone else. He wanted to have the joys others did, but didn't want human contact because of abuse earlier in his life.
It's a story about being kind to those who have a different set of conditions to confront than the viewer, or reviewer.
A fear base life is the one that immediately leaps to "The different one will harm us." It's not accurate, but only a form of "well educated" ignorance.
Aside from that, this movie is a real-looking fairy tale for adults, some of whom sorely need it. A story about compassionate imagination, in the face of icy cold "Rationalists", replaying what they've memorized over and over again, never inventing anything new. That's because their imagination is dead inside them. All they can do now is attack when imagination is shown, no longer capable of recognizing it for it's benefits to us all.
If we had to suspend disbelief for OH BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, or countless other classics, they'd have been buried at birth.
Einstein said "Imagination is more important than knowledge." But then, that was long time ago. We're much smarter now, right Nick?
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