Lars and the Real Girl

25.02.2009 by Patrick W. Galbraith

Valentine's Day 2009 found me in a Cine Libre theater in Ikebukuro at a screening of "Lars and the Real Girl" (ラースと、その彼女), a film dealing with a grown man's alienation from people and love for a life-sized sex doll. I dreaded seeing it, first because I thought the makers of this "dramedy" would make a laughing stock of doll users, which I don't think is cool. The lead is Ryan Gosling, that guy from "The Notebook," and the thought of him embracing a doll sent shivers down my spine. And second, it was a Saturday night that happened to coincide with the holiday of lovers. I wasn't really in the mood for anything as heavy as this appeared to be, but being the noob I am I had nowhere else to go. Besides, the theme is an important one, given the rise of such dolls in Japan and apparently around the world, as well.











My reservations were swept away the moment the film began. A simple score on acoustic guitar, pure white snow in a frozen rural setting, and a callow man standing in a cold garage by a window hiding from his sister in law. Bulled into coming to breakfast, the man, Lars, hands his scarf to the lady, compulsively asking her to "put it all the way on." Minimal dialogue, and an overacted shyness, but somehow it works. Intrigued, I scribbled in my notebook, which reminded me of who this guy is - Gosling looks nothing like himself, and handled this awkward performance with grace.

From here on out things get a lot more fairytale like in nature, like a preacher admonishing the flock to "love one another" while Lars ignores him and plays with toys in the back row. As feared, in these early setting scenes he comes off as comical, so scared of women that he literally throws a bouquet of flowers into a snow bank to avoid giving a girl who doggedly pursues him the impression that he likes her. His desk at his office, where he works with this girl, is utterly spotless and unadorned. A male coworker tries to get him to look at porn, but Lars isn't interested. His sister in law, who refuses to let him drift off into oblivion, literally tackles him and drags him into the house for dinner, demonstrating his weakness. The only thing he wants from the house is a blanket his mother used. All in all, he is a walking stereotype of male insecurity and repression.















However, this depiction, and the course of the movie, starts to change when he orders a Real Doll named Bianca. A highlight of the movie is when he introduces her to his brother, Gus, and his sister in law, Karin: "I have a visitor." We met online. Gus and Karin are thrilled - until they meet her in person (in the loosest sense of the word). Bianca's luggage has been stolen, so she needs to borrow clothes from Karin, a request that seems to border on sexual harassment (give my love doll some of your clothes), but she goes along with it. Lars is talking again, and eating breakfast in the house with Bianca, so the local doctor/psychiatrist advises they go along with the delusion in order to help him work through the issues that brought her into his life. She asks to see Bianca once a week to check her blood pressure, which is low (uh, yeah). This is a ploy to get Lars alone with her so she can talk to him about Bianca, and through her his innermost feelings. The doctor is a cool character, but the scenes with her are very surreal, as are those with the rest of the town that agrees to go along with the charade. One older lady shuts up the conservatives who criticize Lars by saying some people have cats, others see UFOs and most drink, and that dependency is something we forgive them for. Rock on, old lady! A standout scene here is when Lars brings his girlfriend to a party with coworkers, including the girl that likes him, and how others react. Gosling again shines, showing layers of jealousy when the real girl he seems to kind of like at his office is getting hit on, or when Bianca "dances" with another man. Finally, Lars ends up waltzing alone in the crowd, shaking with shame. When he gets into the car to drive Bianca home, he starts to cry, explaining to her, "I'm just so happy." Real depth coming out of an impossible precept, and it works wonderfully. This is not so with Gosling's tenor rendition of "Love," which he serenades Bianca with at his childhood tree fort.

As Bianca becomes more popular in the community, Lars is drawn out, and she is separated from him. He begins to imagine that they are fighting, and she refuses his advances and marriage proposals. Though it is not stated, it appears Lars never has sex with Bianca, who is a religious girl and sleeps in the house with Gus and Karin while Lars remains in the garage. The most his does with her is talk, dance and hug. Moreover, Bianca is staying in his mothers pink room, adding another symbolic layer to all this. Indeed, if one sorts the unsaid background of the brothers' dialogue, it appears Lars' mother died in giving birth to him, and left behind an emotionally repressed husband to raise Lars and Gus. The older brother ran off, leaving Lars to deal with his depressed father. Then Gus comes back, married to Karin, who is pregnant, and old wounds come back to haunt Lars. He worries about her having a child (thus the scene with the scarf) and about being left alone again. This seems to be at the heart of his problems trusting people, being touched and starting a relationship with a woman, which might end in childbirth and losing them. Somehow, Bianca is able to help Lars deal with this, and get those around him to show their devotion to him through their acceptance of Bianca. Another standout scene is Lars chopping wood in the dark, enraged that Bianca has left him to do volunteer work in town (the ploy of an elderly woman who cares deeply for Lars). Karin tries to calm him, but he snaps at her and says people do what they want and don't care. Karin makes a soliloquy expressing the opposite, and Lars is left standing sheepishly in against an inky black, his hot breath steaming and tears in his eyes.

Soon after, Lars finds Bianca unconscious (just go with it) and they rush to the hospital. The doctor, the one that has been treating Bianca and Lars, proclaims the doll is dying. This, too, is part of the cycle Lars has invented in his mind, a kind of Freudian thing where he has to lose this thing he loves in order to grow. Lars finally sleeps in the same room as Bianca, the room where his mother slept, but sleeps wearing his childhood pajamas and clinging to her. It is intimacy and closure he wants after all, not carnal pleasure. As he wastes away in the room with his dying love, Gus invites him to the lake, a place where they used to play. When they arrive, Gus and Karin walk off, leaving Lars and Bianca on the shore. Alone, a broken hearted Lars kisses Bianca before she passes on. The emotional impact of this scene is beyond words. It is absolutely perfect, and Gosling plays it that way. It is unfortunate that the funeral does not continue to be as bold and shocking. Basically, as soon as Bianca is in the ground, Lars asks the girl from his office to go for a walk in the cemetery. She says there will never be anyone like Bianca, but still the two humans end up together. If the real girl had meant those words, that there would never be another girl as real to Lars as Bianca, then this film would be as ground breaking as it should have been. Instead, it ends up being a fascinating character study of a man working through his trauma, and a charming fairytale about the power of love to change us.

In an interesting side note, Bianca became a major celebrity in her visit to Japan to promote this movie. There are images of her appearing all over Tokyo and the TV, which can be found here and here.