Movie #356 - Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl
2007 - Rated PG-13 - 1 hr 46 min
Director: Craig Gillespie
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, Patricia Clarkson

This movie could have been a total farce or completely tasteless.  But somehow, Ryan Gosling falling in love with a plastic sex doll that he things is a real Brazillian girl named Bianca is.... sweet.  I don't know how they did that. My head is still spinning.

Anyway, he's lonely and isolated and really, really awkward.  His brother and sister-in-law do everything they can to help him out, but Lars needs to get that help himself.  He orders a doll online and from the moment she shows up, he's treating her like a "real girl."  She even gets her own bedroom and rides around in a wheelchair.

And although Gosling's performance does much to transform this movie from would-be farce to true heartwarming story, it's not even him that has the biggest impact.  What's more amazing is how the people in town react.  Totally committed to playing along until Lars deals with his unaddressed anxieties/problems/depression/weird plastic doll affair, they just help him keep up the charade.  Before you know it, Bianca's quite the social butterfly and Lars is coming out of his shell. 

Then when Lars is finally ready to say goodbye, they let him do what he needs to do.  By then, it's not just playing along anymore, his friends and family and neighbors are truly attached.  It affects them all in a really beautiful way. 

I'm so glad this isn't a tasteless sex comedy and a guy who fantasizes that his plastic doll is real.  This is so much better.

Movie #216 - Fracture

Fracture
2007 - Rated R - 1 hr 53 min
Director: Gregory Hoblit
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz, Billy Burke

I can never remember this movie by its title, so when I saw it on the wall I didn't know if I'd seen it already.  But as soon as I started watching it, it all came back.  Maybe the title just doens't fit, that's why my brain doesn't make the association.

Anyway, this one's great.  Anthony Hopkins is a jilted husband who wants revenge on his wife and her lover.  He sets up what he thinks is the perfect crime, then sets up the perfect acquittal  by representing himself in court again Ryan Gosling and proving the evidence to be invalid again and again.  But as with any good movie, in the end, he gets what's coming to him...the fun is in watching to see where he missteps.

It's smart and clever, the kind of cerebral intrigue that's nice to see from Hollywood once in a while. Hopkins is great, no surprise, but Gosling holds his own against him.  Well done all around.