Lars and the Real Girl movie review - Aussieboyreviews
IS LARS AND THE REAL GIRL PACKED WITH SEX DOLL LAUGHS?
Okay, this movie is not what it looks like. It’s a sometimes hilarious but very dramatic comedy about a clearly delusional man who has a sex doll as his girlfriend. Lars and the Real Girl is entertaining and touching, but often mature as well.
Storyline
Lars, an unsocial and delusional young man, crafts an unusual relationship with a sex doll he finds on the Internet who he believes is really alive and now everyone he knows must go along with it.
Movie Images
Movie details
Director: Craig Gillespie
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, Patricia Clarkson
Writer: Nancy Oliver
Release Date (Australia): 3 April 2008
Runtime: 106 minutes/1h 46m
Genre: Drama, Comedy, Romance
Country: USA, Canada
Language: English, Spanish
CONTENT GUIDE (warning: May contain spoilers)
The film contains thematic material including mental illness, relationship disputes, sexual themes and references to death.
None.
The film contains infrequent mild coarse language, including use of the words “damn”, “crap”, “hell” and “slutty”.
None.
The film contains a brief depiction of a sex doll’s buttocks.
The film includes a man buying a sex doll, frequent sexual innuendo and crude verbal sex references.
mpaa rating
PG-13 for some sex-related content
Aussie boy's thoughts
In what appears to be just a quirky sex doll comedy, Ryan Gosling gives a mindblowing performance for an incredibly funny but emotional story of mental illness and relationships. Lars and the Real Girl looks like, but certainly is NOT your average fun comedy that you watch for a heap of laughs and just move on, which is why everything about it is so surprising.
It’s a story about a mentally ill and unsocial man who buys a sex doll without using it for sexual purposes and developing a ‘real’ relationship with it. Ryan Gosling is absolutely shocking and staggering in this film, as Lars just seems like a regular shy guy who doesn’t have too much to him, but there’s so much more to his character than you’d ever expect. Although his character development is only brief before he buys the doll, you still end up really caring for him and his loved ones surrounding him.
Because of the solid focus on mental illness, this movie is truly more of a drama than a comedy. That’s not to say there aren’t multiple instances where you’ll laugh so hard you’ll fall out of your seat, but there’s a heavier look at emotions performed terrifically by the talented cast. Lars believes the doll is real, so the whole movie is about everyone going along with it until it ends with unanticipated sorrow. This isn’t a movie for mature audiences because of the obvious sexual references, but because of the difficulty of mental illness, and it’s done very well.
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