Lars is a young man who spent much of his life alone with his widower father. When his dad finally passed on, his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), moved home with his wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer). With his brother back and his father gone, Lars retreated not only to the garage, but further into himself. Karin, however, is determined to break Lars out of his shell and get him involved in the family. It is obvious that he cares about them, but at the same time, he uses any excuse possible to avoid Karin's invitations.I always say that in good movies the plots are largely irrelevant to what the movie is about, and this movie is really about loneliness and community. Lars is extremely shy and socially awkward and also has a problem with being touched by others. He orders a sex doll off of the internet and is absolutely 100% convinced she is real, and the whole town plays along because they all care about Lars.
The film is very funny, largely due to the reactions of people to having this doll presented and addressed as a real live person, but it is not a comedy. It never plays for laughs - they are incidental. At its core the film is about loneliness, how one escapes loneliness, and how people can come together when you least expect it. In this case the whole town comes together for Lars as he works out some of his issues through his delusion of Bianca.
Ryan Gosling plays the part brilliantly. He and director Craig Gillespie were at the screening to discuss the film but didn't really have anything terribly profound to add. And Gosling, while a fabulous actor, came off as a bit of an ass. Gillespie did not.
This film opened at the TIFF earlier this year and I don't know if it is slated for theatrical release and, if so, when. If it is I highly encourage people to see it. And I smell an Oscar nom for Gosling. His performance is so incredible - he really drives and carries the whole movie. He was nominated last year for Half Nelson, which I still haven't seen but have heard nothing but raves about, and I expect he will be nominated again this year. The supporting performers also do a very good job. All of the acting is very understated for the most part.
4 comments:
Great review! I'm really looking forward to this. It's coming out next week in NY & LA. How did Gosling come off as an ass?
Maybe calling him as "ass" was a bit harsh. It was a Q&A session and he just didn't really seem interested and he probably wasn't. He's probably been doing these for months and is just sick of hearing all the same questions over and over.
The reason I say that he came off that way is that he blew off about half of the questions and the other half he gave silly, meaningless responses to. Compared to other actors and filmmakers I've seen doing Q&A, who usually will get into deep discussions with the audience and answer questions earnestly, he just seemed kind of aloof and above it all.
But, as I said, it could very well be that he is just getting sick of the same thing over and over, or he may just not have been in the mood.
I see, thanks for responding. It's probably a combination of things. 1) He may be exhausted. He had premieres in LA and NY two nights in a row, and has been doing press every day this week. 2) He may be preoccupied with his upcoming role in Lovely Bones, which starts filming any day. 3) He's probably sick of hearing himself talk about it. Ryan really loves this movie... he has said it's his favorite character yet. You know when you love something so much, how talking about it to death kind of ruins it for you?
Either way, Ryan definitely marches to the beat of his own drum. It doesn't surprise me in the least that he was acting like an ass.
Yeah, he mentioned several times how much he loved the movie and the role. And in his defense, some of the questions were really dumb... Like "what is the significance of the scarf?" which was so dumb an audience member yelled out the answer.
He is one of my favorite actors and I just hope he stays down to earth and it doesn't go to his head.
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