Sunday, October 28, 2007

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Everyone involved in this film should be nominated for an Oscar, especially the writer, Nancy Oliver (of SIX FEET UNDER fame) and director, Craig Gillespie.

There's a lot of laughter provoking dialogue and scenes in this flick, and I laughed quite a bit, but I more often choked up.

Some people in the theater where I saw it in New Jersey, obviously didn’t get it, or it made them uncomfortable, or confused, or defensive, from the comments I heard and the nervous or inappropriate, mocking or condescending giggles and laughs and guffaws and snickers during the most poignant moments that brought tears to my eyes.

I’m sorry that some of these folks couldn’t open up to its simple message of, well, simply—love.

Hokey? Maybe. Contrived? Probably.

But, it struck a chord with me, and with the friend I saw it with, who has more experience with mental illness, like the kind portrayed in this film, than I do.

Ryan Gosling’s tics and mannerisms, the variety of ways he gave his character of comforting himself and repressing his fears and desires, the emotional range of his character’s volatility and suppression and resistance and confusion and need, is so richly expressed, my friend concluded Gosling must have conducted an intense study of someone with similar mental problems.

It’s the best performance I’ve seen this year. And there have been many performances I found terrific already in 2007.

Maybe there isn’t any real town as ideally old-style-small-community-caring like the one in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL. But I have experienced this kind of self-created community within the cities and towns I’ve lived in over my lifetime, in various ways, including among clan and neighborhood, or in circles of like-minded creative spirits or damaged souls or the physically and mentally challenged.

And given that experience, every last actor and actress in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL down to the day players with one line, or just a look in the background, every last one of them, was perfectly right for the scene, the story.

So far, in my pre-Oscar, way-too-early projections, I’m saying Amy Ryan in GONE BABY GONE deserves the best supporting actress award, and Hal Holbrook in INTO THE WILD the best supporting actor award.

But for best actor, Ryan Gosling’s the one in my book, despite other great performances including Emile Hirsch in INTO THE WILD.

Best actress, so far, is a tough one, with Tilda Swinton in MICHAEL CLAYTON having kicked major ass, but it also would be totally deserved by any of the three female leads in LARS AND THE REAL GIRL—Patricia Clarkson, Kelli Garner and Emily Mortimer—though I’m sure for at least two of them, if not all three, if they were to get nominated, it would be for best supporting actress, under the arcane categorizing system of the Academy.

The Oscars don’t give an award for best ensemble, but the Screen Actors Guild does, and my vote’s going to the cast of LARS AND THE NEW GIRL, so far, despite the almost equally perfect ensemble of INTO THE WILD.

All that silly competitive speculation aside, I just highly recommend this flick for anyone with an open heart. And to paraphrase Jon Hendriks—who wrote (as I remember it) “the mind is like a parachute, it functions better when it’s open”—I’d say a heart is too.

4 comments:

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Anonymous said...

the over all look and feel of Lars and the Real Girl reminded me a lot of Mozart and the Whale (Josh Hartnett plays a character resembling Ryan Gosling’s), it's very much about acceptance and unconditional love as well, Gosling did a great job playing out his character's psychological transitions

Anonymous said...

when a film distorts mental illness to a level that is ludicrous and the reaction of people around him doesn't seem realitic in any sense no message of love is there to be found. the only message i get is that this film was written by someone who has an infantile understanding of psychological disorders and was just winging it without even the benefit of common sense.

you can't open up when you are being insulted. this man is lonely, fine. but the movie plays it so safe that it makes his relationship with the doll chaste. and it just gets worse from there. his town is as loony as he is, even the hospital plays along. and of course a real girl has a crush on this loser as if the level of unbelievability weren't already high enough. instead of going down a route of dark comedy or honest psychological exploration we get life time channel level drama. its not about love, its like bad theater. people say and do stuff that is just mind numbingly stupid and monotonous. the film is predictable and worst of all boring as the awkward absurdity becomes a repetitive one trick pony show.

Lally said...

Hmmm... Guess you didn't like it, and I assume, from your criticism of portraying mental illness so unrealistically etc. because his behvaior is accepted rather than "treated" by drugs or anything other than "talk" therapy, so those who accept horrible burn victims and act as if they don't look frightening are contributing to some fantasy that ignore the problems of their injuries etc. and i also assume you don't like very many movies since very few are totally realistic and most are based on story-telling techniques that skew reality into a three act format and many are actual fanrtasies. I get angrier when the unrealities support violence and/or political lies and corporate and individual greed and self-ceneteredness than when a movie, like this one, tries to expose the deeper truths of community ujnderstanding and acceptance of differences.