There are certain films made with such calculation on behalf of the screenwriter and director that even having all principal performances being top shelf cannot save the film from leaving a lingering taste of having been condescended to. After watching Lars and the Real Girl amble across the screen in its mannered low-key way, I was left thinking of two other films that did this so much better. One of them was even this year. In Adrienne Shelley’s Waitress, the characters and situations may have been a bit quirkier (I’m looking at you Eddie Jemison and Cheryl Hines) and the whole film a whole lot sweeter. But Waitress wore its pseudo-cynical whimsy on its sleeve. Heck they threw Jeremy Sisto in as the ineffectual villain of the piece to balance out Matloc…er…Andy Griffith. The other is a much more low-key danish dramedy called Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself. That film featured a damaged lead character prone to suicide and an brother who looked after him, not to mention a world class actor Mads Mikkleson in the ‘doctor’ role occupied in Lars by the equally talented Patricia Clarkson. However, in Wilbur, the quirk and the damaged soul aspects play off of elements of human nature (to this pair of eyes) which is much more believable and telling of the strengths and flaws of real people and what folks want and what they will compromise for. In Lars and the Real Girl, it seems to come across as the icky fantasies spun in the form of Disney princesses who exist merely to find happiness in the form of rescue by a knight in shining armour.
Perhaps, I do not like my sickly-sweet-oh-so-nice movies played out so low key. Danny Boyle and Adrienne Shelly glossed and sugar coated their own respective sugar cookies (Millions and Waitress respectively). I don’t believe that either of those films aim to tell you too much about life beyond tugging the heart strings and offering a little razzle-dazzle visuals along the way. Craig Gillespie and Nancy Oliver want to sell a message of the power of community coming together to save one of its own. The very low key way in which they go about it, draining any conflict, or heck, even the awkward moments are treated with a smile and a giggle. Everyone is complicit within moments, no a soul seems to want to point out to Lars that his girlfriend is made of plastic with the purpose of dirty little private encounters that shouldn’t be wheeled around the streets of SmallTown U.S.A. No One. Think about that for a moment. There wasn’t even a passer by that was having a rough day and wanted to vent a little, perhaps seize on the easy target of Lars and Mannequin? Now I wasn’t looking for a “Run Forrest Run” scene either (Robert Zemekis’ celebration of accidental fortune in the midst of mental handicap is cloying and condescending way more than Lars, and this is along with the flashy insertion-into-history wizardry). But something more. Something more.
The cornball reaction shots of Bianca (the doll) seem a cheap counterpoint to Ryan Gosling’s accomplished performance, even if his mustache, cheap winter coat and “blankey”-scarf do a fair share of the work. Even at one point in the movie Bianca is up for some sort of municipal elected position by the accommodating townsfolk. I don’t know if a more satirical shot at the difficulties or lack there of (I wouldn’t know) of rural municipal office, where more often than most of the positions run unopposed anyway, but I rather doubt it. In a warped way, there is a condescension of the characters of this small town by just making them too damn nice. My folks are both from very rural small towns and well, they can be as judgmental and harsh as city folk. It just didn’t ring right for me that everyone was a softhearted saint looking out for sweet old Lars. I’ll take Fargo or State and Main any day of the week.
For an opposite take on Lars and the Real Girl, look no further than Andrew’s full review. Also, both Andrew and I hashed the film out on separate occasions (once where I hadn’t seen it yet, once where we both had) in the Cinecast archives (here in Episodes 67 and 68)
