Great film you may have missed: Lars and the Real Girl

Besides the glory that was Star Trek, one of the happiest surprises of my movie-watching year had to be Lars and the Real Girl.  Yeah, I know the movie came out last year, but Netflix fiends have to share the films they enjoy too.

Side observation: there are few films that Focus Features puts out that I don't absolutely love.  Case in point: I can't wait for Away We Go to hit wide release.  (Yes, the film's marketing department decided to rip off Juno by using almost the exact same visual design elements -- we get it!  another pregnancy movie! -- but I nearly forgive them for that since it's written by Dave Eggers, and it stars John Krasinski.)



Ok.  Back to the film.  Basic idea: Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, is a young man who can't connect to the world around him.  He has a job, he goes to church each week, but outside the barest of painful communication with those around him, he's alone and prefers it that way.  His older brother, Gus, and sister-in-law, Karen (played flawlessly by Emily Mortimer) try their best to draw him out, nearly kidnapping him into dinner at their house next door, but he's painfully and obviously uncomfortable and escapes as quickly as possible.  They're thrilled when one day he announces he has a guest staying with him for a while, and asks if he can bring her to dinner.  Oh, and he just wants to mention that she's in a wheelchair, so he hopes they won't make her feel weird about it.

He brings Bianca to dinner, and things are a little awkward.



But what follows is this quirky film about pain and delusion and love and accepting people with all their messy hangups, even when they embarrass themselves... and you.

A few things I loved about it:

1.  Great casting.  Not everyone could pull off the vulnerability necessary to make Lars believable, but Gosling nailed it.  As I mentioned already, Emily Mortimer was fantastic as the sister-in-law, fierce and tenacious in her attempts to draw Lars out of himself.  And Paul Schneider (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) as Gus is angry and guilty and the cynic we need him to be to allow us access into the film.

2.  Even though the story-line doesn't necessarily throw out huge plot twists (other than, you know, the sex-doll part), what surprises is the depth of feeling this film somehow produces.  Yeah, I'm a softy, so perhaps it's nothing to say that this story moved me.  But my Mr. also really enjoyed it, and we talked about it for a few days after.  It just had this air of grace about it that kept humming after the film ended.

3.  I remembered that we all have our delusions, and some of them we can't be talked out of.  Confronting a friend or loved one about hard-to-understand decisions or habits is admittedly difficult.  But it's much MUCH harder to simply stand by and be supportive/welcoming/accepting, knowing that we all let go when we're ready to and not a moment before (and definitely not because someone told us we need to).  Sometimes this is what love demands.

Anyway.  If you're so inclined, give it a watch.  Well worth it.