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Moriarty Gets Gooshy For LARS AND THE REAL GIRL!
Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
I didn’t see MR. WOODCOCK. I heard horror stories about the production of the film while it was in production, things about extended shooting. And then some reshooting. And perhaps a bit more. Rumors. And it just sounded like a grind. I wasn’t familiar with the director, but comedy is one of those genres where too many cooks can definitely screw things up. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe MR. WOODCOCK was a vacation, a romp, a joy for everyone on the crew and in the cast, an untroubled production that resulted in a robust and hearty comedy. Maybe. Cause like I said... I didn’t see it.
So I don’t really have an opinion about Craig Gillespie yet. I don’t even know if you can hold MR. WOODCOCK against him. When I walked into my screening of LARS AND THE REAL GIRL last week, I wasn’t expecting anything from it. Not good, not bad... no expectation at all.
And it kicked my ass.
LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is a great, sweet, rewarding movie that marks the moment I stopped respecting Ryan Gosling more than I liked him. Up till now, he’s been an actor I can admire, but who I didn’t feel a particular affinity for. I never connected with the films he was in. For what it is, THE NOTEBOOK remains one of his most complete roles. Obviously, THE BELIEVER was an announcement, and seeing it at Sundance, the energy around Gosling then was tangible. In this film, Gosling does the sweetest work of his career, and he creates an original character, this lovely fragile lonely man. Nancy Oliver (the real creator of the character, of course) proves to be a voice to contend with based on the deceptive depth of her character work. You could watch LARS as a simple sort of surface comedy, and it works on that level. It’s a pretty good mainstream comedy. But it works as a real character film, and everyone here
I have to give a sort of wholesale admiration to anyone who can take something as inherently creepy and gross as a sex doll and turn it into the center of a movie that is wise, generous, and incredibly sweet-natured. In this case, writer Nancy Oliver and director Craig Gillespie both deserve the credit.
It’s her script that deftly avoids most of the pitfalls of this type of story, somehow making potentially creepy material not only palatable but affecting, universal. Her time writing for SIX FEET UNDER, one of the most tonally difficult shows on television, must have served her well. She manages this sophisticated juggling act with aplomb, and she gives her entire cast something to do, not just the star. That’s one of the signs of a really great writer... they don’t just create a movie star role or two and some set pieces... they create a world, and they invest each and every one of their characters with the same care.
Gillespie, though, worked with this cast, and he’s managed to get amazing work out of Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, and, above all, Ryan Gosling. These are all talented actors who have done good work before, some of them even having worked together before, but how many times have you seen a really good cast stranded? Gillespie has a deft touch with them, though, and he accomplishes something no other film so far has in my opinion: he makes Gosling truly loveable. He’s an accomplished performer. He’s a technical marvel as an actor, and if you really respect the craft, there’s no way you can dismiss the body of work that Gosling’s been building. He’s been smart about his more overtly commercial work, and THE NOTEBOOK in particular put him in a position to carry a movie, allowing him to be careful about the films he chose to do. But he’s a hard guy to warm up to on film. There’s a prickly intelligence to his best work that I don’t find very approachable, but that seems to be endemic to a lot of the good young actors in Gosling’s age range. For some reason, Gillespie captures a different Gosling here, and there’s some sort of alchemy that happens with the rest of the cast, and you believe in them as family. You believe in the connections between them. In a film like this, that’s the difference between decent and great. You can fake the connections and still come up with a decent film, but when everything works and those connections feel absolutely real, that’s when you end up with a special film.
All of this is preamble, of course, to the elephant in the room: how the fuck do you make a movie about a guy who is having a relationship with a Real Doll and not make it creepy?
Because if you’ll remember, when I was posting a trailer for this movie, I also included an imbedded YouTube video of an English documentary about guys who are in “relationships” with Real Dolls. And it was one of the most grotesque and unnerving things I’ve seen in recent memory. It really freaked me out, and it made me skeptical about this one’s underlying premise.
The simple answer is you sidestep the issue of sex altogether. That’s not what LARS & THE REAL GIRL is about. In fact, I suspect Lars is a virgin. Sex isn’t even part of the equation, and he deflects it in several interesting ways when he first imagines Bianca. That’s the name he gives to the Real Doll he orders. When he introduces her to Gus (Schneider) and Karin (Mortimer), his brother and his sister-in-law respectively, he makes sure to tell them that Biana is very religious, but just to be sure, she’s also in a wheelchair. So Lars removes the issue entirely when he imagines her. The relationship he needs isn’t about that sort of intimacy, and I suspect Lars isn’t really equipped to think about anyone in sexual terms. He doesn’t buy Bianca for a sexual outlet; he brings her “to visit” so that he can finally learn how to socialize. He wants to reach out to the community around him. He wants to be part of his family. He wants all those things, but he’s not equipped for them, and so Bianca becomes a tool for him to practice so that he can make mistakes without hurting anyone, without being hurt himself. Lars is a sweet and damaged character, and I can see how easily Oliver’s script or Gosling’s performance could have made him seem like a simpleton or a creep or anti-social or insane... but it never happens. Lars just seems to be trapped, like a kid who climbed a high dive, then looked down and realized where he was. He wants to dive, but he’s afraid of what’s going to happen when he hits the water.
So much of a film like this depends on the casting of the love interest, the person we’re rooting for Lars to end up with, and Kelli Garner might be the person who benefits the most from this film in the long run. She makes a credible romantic possibility as Margo, and she manages to make us think that she could hook up with Lars, that she’s the right choice for him. It’s nice to actually root for people in a film like this because they’re decent and sweet and deserve good things, and not because some convoluted bullshit plot tells us to root for lying narcissistic assholes, like most “romantic comedies.”
Think of how powerfully abused that term is when talking about films. “Romantic comedy.” How often is that description used for a film that is neither romantic nor funny. Doesn’t that seem wrong? Doesn’t it seem to devalue a genre when 90% of that genre fails to fit the basic definition? LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is a potent reminder of just what is truly romantic in movies... it’s the ability to make us believe not only that two particular characters are right for each other, but that it is possible for anyone to ever really be right for anyone else. Fate... destiny... love at first sight... all these things are ideas sold to us by romantic fiction, and at its worst, these things can be cloying, insulting, even offensive. But when everything gels just so, as it does in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, it reminds us of just how a cliché became a cliché in the first place.
This is first rate work that reminds me of a film like LOCAL HERO or even the work of Preston Sturges. Yeah, that’s right... I said Preston Sturges. He wrote screwball communities better than anyone, and this film’s got a doozy of a small town. I wish I’d spent my whole life in one place, and I wish I felt like I had a hometown I could claim as my own. I am sure I could get in touch with many people from my past, but they’re all over the place. I’ve always imagined that the real benefit to growing up in a small town where everyone knows everyone else is that after a while, you don’t have to worry about secrets because everyone knows everything, and everyone practices true tolerance. I know it wouldn’t really be like that, but that’s the fantasy, and this film fully indulges that. I like what it has to say about community, and I wish that’s how it really works. Maybe that’s another part of the romance, that small-town life that doesn’t exist but should. I’m not sure there’s any community that would indulge Lars to the degree that this one does, but it raises the question of why that seems so unlikely. Are we that threatened by each other’s eccentricities? Or is there room for us to allow people their quirks in pursuit of our own? As much as I think there are some big ideas percolating in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, its main strength is as simple confident entertainment. Like I said at the start of this piece, I didn’t see MR. WOODCOCK, but based on this movie, I’d say Craig Gillespie is a comedy director of real substance.
This is one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year, and I’ve managed to see something like 140 new releases so far. Unassuming and delightful from end to end, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is exactly the kind of film people always say they want to see more of. Now let’s see if audiences actually support it now that it’s out there.
I hope to have more reviews for you later today, including my take on 30 DAYS OF NIGHT, but I’ve got a full schedule to keep. As that potential writer’s strike gets closer, I find myself getting busier and busier each day...
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
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Excellent review by Moriarty. First, also.
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I'm still not convinced. I might have to wait for DVD.
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... because you actually read the entire article before posting. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
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I've always admired Gosling, I think he's a truly gifted young actor, but like Ed Norton he's one of those actors i'm not sure i could say i truly like. Looking forward to seeing this one.
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When I first saw the preview for this I thought it looked light hearted and funny, then my roomate was all like "that looks like a piece of shit". So I was like "maybe", but now I think I will give it a shot.
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just like yoko, eh harry?
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...that it was incredibly off-putting how easily and almost across-the-board, without question, that everyone in the town just bought into what was going on with Lars and Bianca? I find that I have to agree with most of what you're saying, but I thought the idea here was undersold by the screenwriter. Aside from his brother - and even he only briefly - no one ever questions, "Gee, just what the FUCK is wrong with this guy?" He either lives in the most understanding and accepting town in history or the locale was genetically engineered after being plucked straight from Frank Capra's cerebral cortex. I thought that there was so much to like about this film, but that was one huge beat that the writer really, really tanked. And I won't say it ruined the movie for me...but it makes it almost impossible for me to recommend the movie simply because it's so aggravating.
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Seriously. That was the first thing I ever saw Gosling in, and I was on board immediately. Good movie, pretty honest, and great performances by David Morse and Gosling.
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We have lived in the shadows for too long. Now one knows the shame that we feel. We are the lovers of sex dolls or LOSD for short. We LODS have keep our little secrets in the closet about how we love to hump plastic replicas of women...or men. Yes in the closet, deflated and stuffed in a box until the mood is right and Barry White fills the air and squeeky romance fills our hearts. After blowing up the doll I am so light headed it is like the first swoon of love, and when I KY up and hump my sulty rubber princess, I feel a rush that a real woman can't provide...laying still until I get off and being quiet. LODS are normal people, we are doctors, lawyers(while not regular, they never know true love being sharks) garbage men, cops, we keep the lights on, and when the lights are out....what I am saying is there is not strange about loving a piece of plastic...George W Bush has done it for 30 years.
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Its Quagmire!!!!
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You've now made me regret seeing AMERICAN GANGSTER instead of this. Damn you.
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If you're a cynic, don't go see this movie. Its as simple as that. Like a musical, the film needs you to view it with a suspension of disbelief akin to watching a fable. But if you can go with it it's one of the most pleasurable films I've ever seen, easily my favorite of the year.
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...everytime I read one of his articles and/or reviews I fall a little bit more in love with Moriarty. Such a generous, sweet, smart writer.
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a great review. well done. i too, was sort of creeped out by the "real doll" premise in this movie, but after reading this, will head out to have a look.
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In real life no one would get within 50 feet of this guy.
This premise is disturbing, but the execution is in a touching 'whimsical' style? Wow, what a twist. :P
Ryan Gosling is a contender for most over-rated actor right now. 'Half Nelson' was a HUGE letdown, mostly due to his performance. But I know I am certainly in the minority on that opinion. -
I don't think the problems inherent in the story have a single thing to do with cynicism or suspension of disbelief. Frankly, I'm a little tired of the "turn your brain off and enjoy" bullshit that seems to come up whenever a dissenting opinion is expressed with a film. If you want us to suspend our disbelief, you (the writer and director) had better set up a world that caters to such a suspension - EDWARD SCISSORHANDS comes to mind most immediately. Allow us the ability to suspend. But don't give us a real world with supposedly real people - and I didn't think for one minute that Lars couldn't exist - and then ask us to ignore the fact that NO ONE is positing the most simple of questions, that no one is uncomfortable, that no one has a problem with it. That's idiotic and lazy. Just because you gave it a pass doesn't mean that someone pointing out an obvious narrative flaw is a perturbed malcontent.
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Seriously, all this AND you are supposed to believe that he doesn't use the doll for SEX?!?! Totally, completely ridiculous.
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While I don't share you overall opinion of Gosling - I actually think he's the single most impressive actor working out there right now - you hit the nail on the head as to how I felt after seeing this. I think all this film needed was a node of realism, an acknowledgment that not EVERYONE was along for the ride. They could have blended the disturbing and the whimsy and it might have been the best movie of the year; however, they decided not to and because of that the whole encounter rings false. Maybe I just spoiled my year by seeing ONCE in March; it was too early and nothing else is going to live up to that.
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This is indeed one of the best films of teh eyar, no question. And while actors don't usually win awards for films like this I really wish Goslings performance would garner some nominations. Just a brilliant, sweet, down to Earth, and oddly real and human film.
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everyone writing long drawn out essays on this topic.
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Where's Andrew McCarthy when you need him?
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Hollywood always seems to idealize small towns. I grew up in a small town and in my experience they are a lot more like the town in Sling Blade. I really do want to see this, though.
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I didn't expect much, and I especially didn't expect to get close to crying. This is a funny and moving film. Go see it as soon as possible. The LA Times article about Gillespie said David Dobkin directed all the reshoots on Woodcock. It said he chose to left the production and it wasn't a dramatic thing.
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that finds the premise ridiculous or thinks the film will be creepy that has seen the film. The way they get around where you expect the film to go is pretty genius.
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Actually it's very easy to believe that this guy in particular isn't having sex with the doll. In fact it ends up that it would be creepier and upsetting if he were.
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...creepy and upsetting is pretty much the only way to
present this subject. Has anyone, ever, in the history of the sex toy industry, EVER bought a 'Real Doll' and NOT had sex with it?? The whole thing is too silly to be played straight. Ryan Gosling I may have been a little hard on (have only seen 'Half-Nelson') but his MMC credentials
speak for themselves. -
... is South Park gonna have fun with this topic next season! (You just KNOW they will!)
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I'm not even sure how you can make that assumption without having seen the film. In fact what Lars is doing is explained quite well. I'm surprised how limited your imagination is.
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Oct 19, 2007 12:35:34 PM CDT
"exactly the kind of film people always say they want to see mor
by newc0253
really??
no, i mean, really?
i confess, i had no idea there was a growing demand for more films in the 'guy meets sex toy' genre. Interesting review, though, Mori. You're the first reviewer I've read that hasn't creeped out at the idea that an entire town would enable this guy's delusion.
And if it turns out all the other reviewers are right, and you are wrong, i'll never trust you agin.
Some of us still haven't forgotten the Real Cancun.
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In retrospect I would have to say that my imagination IS limited on this one. I just see the subject as either 'disturbing' ala "Love Object," OR (potentially) hilarious...
I think the guys behind "American Pie" might be able to approach this subject matter in some way, but the approach of this movie seems off to me. I dunno...I don't like Wes Anderson or Napoleon Dynamite either so I don't think I'm the target audience for this one! -
... The christers are sure gonna go into uproar mode when they get wind of this flick. If there isn't a "thou shalt not get it on with mannequins" rule in the bible, they'll be sure to cobble one together anyway. They never seem to pass up a chance to have a public aneurism.
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great cast, but such a boring movie. general lack of conflict, keeps hitting the same joke over and over and the resolution was pretty unearned. sweet film, but super dull and i'm surprised so many people are giving it a pass despite its shortcomings.
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Preston seems to be cropping up more frequently in hipster film reviews (please don't ask me to cite, I'm just sort of riffing here). For awhile in the relatively recent past, it was Billy Wilder who got cited for his "beyond his era" hipness. Now that Billy has received so many plaudits, official and unofficial, it seems Preston Sturges has come more to the fore. I wonder if it has something to do with more Preston Sturges being available, and well-reviewed on DVD? I haven't checked. Don't get me wromg, I like me some Preston Sturges, what I've seen, that is, which isn't much. I saw Sullivan's Travels and enjoyed it. I also love me some Billy Wilder. But its just something I've noticed: that Preston Sturges is getting cited as worthy more often these days. That's probably a good thing.
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Have you not seen Half Nelson ? Gosling was da bomb in Half Nelson.
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David Arquette-Cox wants his creepy loser niche back. Now!Could'a sworn it was Arqua-lad in the TV ad.
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... I agree. He was great in HALF-NELSON. He was also a drug-addled loser, and as much as I respect the performance, it hardly endeared him to me.
I think Gosling's been great before this. Shit, man, the first time I saw THE BELIEVER, I knew he had the goods. But what makes a movie star is more than talent; it's that innate likability, and this is the first time I've felt it from Gosling onscreen. I think it's an important step for him in an already-rock solid career. -
Hi, sorry to infiltrate the post, but I thought some of you guys might be interested in...
http://thisnovember5th.com/
It's an attempt to raise money for 'dark horse' candidate Ron Paul through a 'flash' donation campaign. While I'm sure some of you don't like him (and prefer the conventional candidate choices), perhaps some of you do...
If so, please help out! Thanks for your time! -
I saw this Sunday night at Austin Film Festival, and while Moriarty's review is eloquent and very well written, I am forced to completely disagree with his opinion. Part of my problem might be that I was fortunate enough to see "Juno" right before this, and there is no fair comparison. But while I found the first 30 minutes of Lars to be quirky and fun, it quickly began to drag as all the jokes wore thin. Yes, they sidestepped the issue of sex. Yes, the town is quirky and the people are nice, but the film lost focus on that and got so boring I could barely keep my eyes open. I could never get emotionally invested in the characters, because too much time was focused on Lars and the doll itself. I was never able to connect with the doll as a character, and I felt the story's conclusion was just too predictable, but that may have something to do with my peripheral experience with the mental health profession. For those watching with me who were able to suspend their disbelief, it was NOT a comedy but a very serious drama, and the end was just touching enough to provide a very dim light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I was not unhappy with Gosling's performance, but I was definitely not terribly impressed. This was no Rain Man or Gilbert Grape. This wasn't even Arnie from LA Law. The point is, don't believe the hype. This is NOT a laugh-your-ass-off movie, and it's probably not a touching enough drama to make you cry. Go see Juno instead. You'll be glad you did.
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I respect Nancy Oliver as a writer. She turned in some great Six Feet Under Episodes. From all the reviews I've read, I suspect this is probably a great film. Oliver is a terrific writer, unsentimental but able to really hone in on emotional issues. What would you rather see instead? Abbot and Costello Meet Snakes on a Plane?
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Oct 19, 2007 8:24:47 PM CDT
I'm not sure I agree with you Mori on this likability thing
by industrykiller!
I guess in a way "movie stars" have to have an innate likeablity, at least in this day and age, when Ashton Kutcher is famous. But I think putting so much attention on this likeablity factor, which may I add has become something else entirely from the "it factor" or a greater charisma, is a big problem when it comes to choosing which actors to promote. Likablity, quite frankly, is overrated. Unless of course you are a studio working, money loving, greedy asshole or a soccer mom in middle America (is there even a distinction when it comes to who does more harm tot eh film industry?). Case in point Sean Penn, who catches so much undeserved horseshit for being unlikable. Unlikable, maybe to a certain audience. Incredible actor? Absofuckinglutely, he delivers ten times out of ten. I don't think De Niro in the 70's was likable, nor Pacino. Jack Nicholson had that magnetism, but likable? And Brando was everything BUT likable. I LIKED Johnny Depp alot more when he was that moody asshole who did films no one saw. Daniel Day Lewis? Pretty unlikable and I don't think There will be Blood will help, thank god. Personally I hope Gosling avoids being that "likable" actor who everyone can relate to, his career will be better for it. I'm glad he played the character of Lars, a guy you pretty much have to love, because he's brilliant at doing it, but I hope just when people start to expect and/or want that from him, he Zags instead of zigs. All the great ones do.
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Oct 19, 2007 8:26:40 PM CDT
Augustus Goslings character wasnt supposed to be retarded
by industrykiller!
like those other examples you cited. Just fyi.
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... I don't think an actor has to be likable. I don't think a character has to be likable.
But I do think that likability is the difference between a great character actor and a movie star sometimes. I don't think all movie stars are great actors, and I know that not all great actors become movie stars. I personally don't get all hung up on whether or not I like the characters in something before I recommend it.
In this case, though, what I'm talking about is seeing someone suddenly add a new skill to their skillset. Up until now, I've found Gosling somewhat dour on film. Now, I'm sure some of that is "I'm a serious actor, not a fucking Mouseketeer, and don't you forget it" syndrome, but seeing him suddenly open up like he does in this one startled me. I wasn't expecting it and, honestly, I didn't think he had it in him. I think it will change the way many audience members think of him. It's not that I think he's a better actor now... but I do think that he's got a better shot at real stardom now. -
most men would do it.
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I would say that the Fleshlight is an appropriate equivalent to a dildo. The Real Doll, however, is supposed to simulate a human -- a human that doesn't speak, think or act -- just passively lets you fuck it. It's a horse of a different color... or... uh, a hole of a different fuck.
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You more or less said it. I think what Mori really means isn't so much likability as vulnerability, which I'm a little surprised Mori didn't gleam more of from Half Nelson. I thought his performance in that was not just the best of that year, infinitely better than Forest Whitaker, but of the last several. You literally cannot catch that guy acting in that film. I've said it before, It's worthy of the 70's heyday of Hoffman, Pacino, or De Niro. But I can see what Mori means, he's talking about a particular brand of vulnerability, and while it doesn't get any more human than his work in Half Nelson, he exhibits a sweetness in Lars that allows him to glow in just such a way. I think it was pretty god damned obvious that gosling had it in him all along though.
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I saw the movie back in March so I was wondering if at the Christmas party scene the filmmakers kept the Talking Heads "This Must be the Place" as the song in that scene. I thought that was some absolutely brilliant use of music for a film and I really hope they didn't change it.
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... they did keep that music cue intact. Great, great use of Talking Heads.
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at my harry and his fake wife joke, my talents here are wasted on you heathen baboons!
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Yes, I know he wasn't supposed to be retarded. I was just trying to cite examples of great actors in memorable parts dealing with mental retardation/mental illness. Can you think of other performances where the character is emotionally retarded but not mentally retarded? Jodie Foster as Nell? There aren't many examples. I felt that Gosling's performance at the beginning, that everyone's raving about involved mostly running past people, silently shouldering them aside to get to his cube or his garage. As he develops the relationship with his doll and begins to come out of his shell, his character has already been established as too much of a subject to make a real impression on me. Obviously, people are already going nuts over this film, but none of it worked for me, and I think there will be a minority of people who will not like it.
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I'd have to agree with comedian_x - the creepiness factor that comes along with someone who uses a sex doll is the aspect of wanting to use a person, the entire person, in any manner they choose. A dildo, or the female equivalent, is just a tool. A sex doll is meant to be more of a companion.
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Technically, there's nothing more artificial to shagging a sex doll than an imagined fantasy in your mind while wanking with just your hand...but I just find those dolls soooooooo creepy. I can't believe somebody can actually fuck those things. And as for companions, what was so wrong with dogs?
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But I looked over and Peter Noone and Kurt Russell were both laughing pretty hard, so I guess it's okay.
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