Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Real Girl

Lars (Ryan Gosling) is an introverted kind person who does not have much contact with the outside world other than his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), and Gus's wife Karin (Emily Mortimer). Until one day he gets a box that opens a new word for not only him but everyone who loves and cares for him. Lars and the Real Girl.

Bianca is the "real girl""and she is treated like a real girl by everyone in the movie. The actors did a fantastic job treating her as if she were real. Of course they had to pretend to pretend that she was real for their parts but they did a good job because if you see the
movie and you don't like it, it won't be because you think it was cheesy. Because they do such a great job at convincing everyone that they believe she's real as much as Lars believes she's real that it's hard not to believe as well. If you're not to like the movie then that will be because you don't like the story as a whole, not because of the "real girl".

The story is touching because the entire town pretends she is real just because they really like Lars and are hoping that by doing this they were helping Lars. Lars also learns a lot about how everyone else thinks since he fails to do so without the real girl.

Ryan Gosling does a fantastic job as Lars and has the ticks and smile down pat. It makes him the character and I forgot the confident person he was in The Notebook. Emily Mortimer does a good job with her facial expressions because she has a lot of them during the movie from compassion to anger and they add roundness to her character that would be bland without them. Paul Schneider is the brother and he has a moment where he states how much he cares about Lars and he makes it real and touching.
I liked Lars. He made me laugh because of what he liked and what he wanted made sense to me in a way. I also liked how finally a
movie has heart. It has so much heart and shows that if a community has a lot of care that they can get through anything matter how weird it is. This community was like a big extended family. They talked about how weird it was that he had a girl from a box but they still put forth the effort to help out.

This story is also more creative than most stories out there. It went to a place where no one else has ever gone and I have to say it was good writing as well. Nancy Oliver was the writer and she deserves a gold star. Ha. It seems to be her first noticeable work and that is a good start.

Craig Gillespie did a good job because he had the real girl treated as a real girl. She got her own trailer and dressed in it and was on set like she were real just so that Gosling would stay in character with her being real to his character. That was a good way of getting great acting out of actors. His previous work was Mr. Woodcock and I didn't see that so I can't state how much of a difference there was but I'm pretty sure this movie was better. Just a guess.

The one thing that would have made the movie better is if there were some well timed hugs. Because Lars doesn't like hugs and he explains why but I thought that that would have shown some character progression if that happened. I'm sure there is a good reason as to why they're not any but that's why I didn't give it a higher grade.

Lars and the Real Girl is a silly movie in concept but has more heart than those movies that are suppose to in concept. I believe I'll purchase this movie when it comes out. If you don't like quirky
creative ideas then you should stay away from this movie. But if you do decide to see it then at the end it is possible that a tear might seep out of your eye and you'll have to remind yourself that she's not a real girl and when that happens good luck on undoing what the movie planted in your heart.



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