There’s a type of film I like to call “conventional indie.” You know the ones: a self-absorbed, oddball protagonist, sometimes a whole family of them, is faced with a problem, usually psychological, and interacts with a number of equally oddball characters who, thanks to some freak alignment of nature that dictates the supporting characters exist for the sole purpose of healing the protagonist(s), heal them. Usually – not always, but usually – romance is involved. Recent movies that fall under this category include Ghost World, Napoleon Dynamite, Thumbsucker, Little Miss Sunshine, and anything directed by Wes Anderson.

Lars and the Real Girl is a conventional indie.

I do not mean to knock conventional indies. I rather enjoy them, and rank at least one of them (Garden State) among my all-time favourites. But notice the pattern: Lars and the Real Girl is about a social outcast who, at least outwardly, appears to function in society. He wakes up, eats, goes to work, comes home, and lives in the log cabin outside his brother’s house. Lars has a problem: he is completely incapable of anything beyond the barest of human interaction. And everyone – everyone, from his sister-in-law, to his coworkers (including the new one, who happens to be a cute girl), to the office secretary he blows off every morning, to the old lady at church who gives him a flower he promptly throws in the snow – is really, really nice to him, as if they exist solely to make his life better.

As played by Ryan Gosling, Lars is certainly hard to dislike: he’s clearly a good person, loves his family, was a bit unhinged by his father’s death (no, we don’t get to find out exactly how it affected him, thankfully, though there are hints), and is quiet in a quirky, almost endearing kind of way. But enjoying someone’s company for a couple of hours is one thing; having to live with them day after day is entirely different. The attitude of Gus (Paul Schneider), Lars’s brother, makes sense: it’s that typical mix of exasperation and caring you often feel towards your family. Karin (Emily Mortimer), Gus’s wife, has an attitude towards Lars that makes sense too, assuming you buy her as a sunny person, which I did. The other characters however, especially Margo (Kelli Garner), the office cutie, exist outside reality.

However, let’s assume that, like me, you buy (or want to buy) the conventional indie’s belief in the best qualities of human nature. Let’s assume that it makes perfect sense when the local GP/psychiatrist, Dr. Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson), diagnoses the blow-up doll Lars orders with anemia, begins scheduling weekly sessions for her (taking Lars into her office so “Bianca” can have some alone time) and advises the other townspeople to go along with it. Let’s assume it’s normal when the other townspeople care enough about Lars to treat Bianca like a real person, and that no one bats an eye when (wheelchair-bound, of course) she attends church, the local school board meetings, and even an office party.

In retrospect, the film is a tricky balancing act. As Lars, there’s a lot Gosling could have done wrong with the role, but doesn’t. And even though the town is populated by people who are this nice, that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to snap occasionally. At least once during the movie someone blows up at Lars for the same reasons I wanted to. The fact is, sometimes it takes this many people being to lift a depressed person’s spirits. And thankfully, there is no multitude of quirky characters in this indie: Lars himself is odd enough to carry the film.

I enjoyed Lars and the Real Girl, but wouldn’t recommend it to viewers who dislike conventional indies any more than I’d recommend, say, Across the Universe to people who hate musicals.

3.5*

Related posts:

1. Game Review: American Girl: Mia Goes for Great
2. Movie Review: Juno
3. Ryan Gosling and his ‘Real Girl’