Lars and the Real Girl

What a strange movie. I think I know what they were trying to do. They kind of hit us over the head with it during an argument between Ryan Gosling's character, Lars, and Lars brother's wife, show that everyone loved this fellow, Lars, so much in this small town, that they would actually go along with his delusion that a life sized "love doll" was a real live girlfriend for Lars.

The problem I had was that they did not develop Lars character enough, so that you knew that he was a fantastic guy that a whole community would help out in such a way. It was still a funny movie though, its just that the emotional pay off, for me, fell flat. I think if they would have spent more time with Lars helping these people that later on help him instead of spending so much time showing him as being socially awkward with his sister-in-law and work place love interest. They could've accomplished both at the same time, he could be socially awkward and saintlike with these people that helped him. Oh well.

There is an interesting portion of the movie spent with a doctor/psychologist where they work on Lars problem of not being touched. I guess Lars was raised without a mother and by a father that was heartbroken and sad, so perhaps did not touch Lars at all. Lars seems to feel pain when touched by other people. Also there seems to be some idea going on that Lars is afraid that his brother's wife will die during childbirth like Lars' mother did.

There was this whole other part of this movie that felt really strange to me. That there was some woman pining away to be with this socially awkward delusional fellow the whole time. She patiently waits in the wings while Lars goes through this strange delusion. Then (spoiler alert) at the end she ends up holding hands with Lars at his dummy's funeral. To me, it seemed to be a rather idealistic portrayal of some strange feminine romantic notion that in my experience does not exist at all. It has been my experience that women want a man that takes care of everything for them. They do not wait patiently for a man to sort out his life and go as far as lending a hand in sorting out his life seems to me to be ludicrous. But that is just my experience.