Lars & the Real Girl

Lars & the Real Girl is a sweet, heartwarming story about a man who develops a relationship with a life size doll. Ryan Gosling plays Lars, an anti-social towns-person who actually does believe his new lover is real. Instead of all the people in town freaking out, they are advised to go along with his delusion. The hope is that Lars will eventually get over it on his own. The film's strange but excellent premise unfortunately succumbs to typical light comedy for the most part but does stand out occasionally. This is mostly due to the brilliance of Gosling, who again shows evidence of Oscar calibre acting. The film does what it sets out to do by being an entertaining and moving little film. This is fine, however, I can't help but wonder if under someone else's direction, this could have been a spectacular character study. A good, but uneven comedy/drama.