Outdoor Movies!

There is nothing better than a glass of wine, a bag of Jaffas and an outdoor movie to relax a stressed mind. Earlier this year, Arthouse Cinema screened its first outdoor film at Oakura’s Butlers Reef as part of a summer-long series. The outdoor movies are scheduled to continue until the end of March. The group wants to broaden the movie-going experience by choosing arthouse films, such as “Lars and the Real Girl” (2007). Though the title may suggest a lewd premise, the film is actually surprisingly sweet and funny, and sex-free. The following is a review of the film originally published in the Colorado Springs Gazette. You can read the original blog post about the outdoor cinema here.

How exactly do you pitch a film like “Lars and the Real Girl?” “Picture this: a painfully shy young man orders a sex doll on the Internet and takes it with him everywhere he goes.”

I’m sure studios were lining up with their wallets out. Well, if they weren’t, they should have been. “Lars and the Real Girl” is an incontestable delight (and not even remotely the risqué film some might assume it to be).

Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) is not simply socially awkward, he’s socially inept. Unable to stand the touch of another human being, he prefers to sit alone in the dark, wrapped in the small blanket his mother knitted when he was born. Lars lives in the garage apartment behind his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and pregnant sister-in-law, Karin’s (Emily Mortimer) house. Karin has made it her mission in life to extract the damaged but gentle Lars from his shell, constantly inviting him over for dinner despite his pitiful excuses as to why he is always unavailable.

One night Lars unexpectedly shows up on their doorstep with an announcement. He has a girlfriend. Is it Lars’ perky coworker, Margo (Kelli Garner) who is always watching him from the church choir loft? Overjoyed at the news, Gus and Karin are stunned when Lars reveals a life-sized love doll whom he calls Bianca. He’s even invented a back story: Bianca is a half-Brazilian, half-Danish paraplegic missionary raised by nuns who has come to the States for furlough after meeting Lars online. She’s “very religious,” of course, and would need to stay in Gus and Karin’s guest room.

Is Lars putting on an act? It doesn’t appear that way. He treats Bianca the same in private as he does in public. Gus is appalled and considers having his brother committed, while Karin sees some glimmer of hope in Lars’ actions, however absurd they may be. When Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson, who brings a deeply compassionate intelligence to the role) recommends playing along until they can determine what part of Lars desperately needs Bianca to exist, the whole town gets into the act.

While Lars drags Bianca everywhere, even to church, the small Wisconsin town in which he lives welcomes her as if she were every bit as real as Lars believes her to be. For them, Lars — eccentricities and all — is worth the compassion and even the benefit of the doubt.

“Lars and the Real Girl” is directed by Craig Gillespie (who incongruously enough also directed this summer’s critically and commercially panned “Mr. Woodcock”) and written by Nancy Oliver (“Six Feet Under”). If the plot sounds like the perfect set-up for a raunchy comedy, think again. Bianca may have been manufactured for sex, but Lars’ relationship with her is completely chaste. Indeed, the film blessedly never once indulges in even a hint of smut, even though there were so many opportunities where it could have.

This is not to say that a grown man lugging around an anatomically correct sex doll doesn’t have inherently funny scenes. But “Lars’” genuine humor erupts from the quiet, unexpected moments, not the widely telegraphed ones to which a lesser film would succumbed.

Gosling is one of the best actors we have. His performance is a study in serenity, control and tone — too little and we’d never buy his delusion; too much and we’d be looking for a straitjacket with Gus. But Gosling plays Lars with pinpoint control and quirky believability, delivering a performance that is never creepy and always endearing.

The magic of “Lars and the Real Girl” is in its total sincerity. The characters in the film play it straight and we take our cues for how to respond based on their actions. As the community folds Lars and Bianca into their lives, so do we. So strong is Lars’ attachment and his friends’ commitment to kindness, that we suddenly find personality where before there had been only silicone.

Sure, this quiet, little film is implausible, but if you look at “Lars and the Real Girl” as a sort of parable, the film’s logic begins to make its own charming sense. You see the hardfought, satisfying conclusion coming, slowly working its way toward you, and still you are moved.

Don’t let the movie’s premise turn you off to what is one of the most affirming, gratifying films you’ll see this year. In a world of fakes, “Lars” is the real deal.

Source: “Review: Comedy isn’t overblown in charming ‘Lars’” by Brandon Fibbs -Colorado Springs Gazette. Read full article at: http://www.gazette.com/entertainment/lars_29506___article.html/real_bianca.html.

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