Deep in the Uncanny Valley: “Lars and the Real Girl”

After watching the BBC documentary Guys and Dolls about the men who purchase and live with “Real Dolls”—anatomically-correct silicon female dolls—I shot off a quick text to the work-wife telling her to make sure I never ended up like many of the men in that move, in my 50s with my sole source of companionship being a custom-ordered sex toy. Her response: “Well, I can’t work miracles, you know.”

 

 

Having learned about Real Dolls in a Salon article about the phenomenon, I was curious about how it would be presented in the movie Lars and the Real Girl. As it turned out, Lars took it and ran it through the masses-friendly indie-movie cookie-cutter. Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling), an emotionally-damaged young man, buys one the things and promptly introduces her to friends and family as his new girlfriend. The decent, friendly, salt-of-the-Earth denizens of the frozen Midwestern town where he lives play along with his illusion, and in the process help Lars work his way toward building normal, human relationships. It’s a cute movie, but an artificial one. It also recycles the plot of an early King of the Hill episode in which Bobby uses Luanne’s plastic beauty-school head to practice kissing in preparation for a make-out party. Only Lars, being an indie-movie, throws in some good performances and emotional scars to give the whole thing some weight it doesn’t necessarily deserve.

 

 

Lars is emotionally-withdrawn to the point of blankness, despite the best efforts of everyone around him. His brother Gus and pregnant sister-in-law Karin (Paul Schneider and Emily Mortimer—both so good they deserve a movie of their own) try in vain to get him to join them for dinner (he lives in their free-standing garage). The members of his church try to push him toward a new co-worker (Kelli Garner) who has a mild crush on him. The local psychiatrist (Patricia Clarkson) tries to get past his shell. All for naught.

 

 

That is until his cubicle-mate introduces him to the Real Dolls web site. Next thing you know a large crate shows up at Lars’s garage and he shows up for dinner at Gus and Karin’s house with his new girlfriend “Bianca.” Do I have to tell you that Bianca is made of plastic? I didn’t think so.

 

 

The movie goes down easily enough—it’s not poorly made. The performances are all fine and sympathetic. The Northern Wisconsin/ Minnesota setting (it’s never specified) is perfectly rendered with oppressive skies, war-bond clapboard houses, sweaters and ugly ski jackets. As a matter of fact, the locale was so authentic, I had flashbacks to my youth and the endless depressing trips to various relatives houses.

 

 

The character of Lars is really the lynchpin of the movie, and, unfortunately, its greatest liability. What precisely Lars’s damage is is never quite made clear. We’re told that his mother died giving birth to him and that his father never got over it. His brother has a nice dark night of the soul in which he admits his feelings of guilt over leaving home and abandoning Lars to be raised by their broken-hearted father. Still, none of this quite adds up to what we see onscreen. Lars himself is mostly a cipher. There’s a lonely scene of him sitting by himself and gently swaying, lost in his thoughts, but we never have the slightest clue as to what those are. Gosling works hard to make the character real (finally, he found a role that fits his “I swallow half of my sentences” acting style), but there’s just not enough in the script to work with. The audience is left trying to piece him together, but it’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t form a picture. What are we supposed to be seeing here?

 

 

The movie nods toward the everyday objects we imbue with life in a few scenes with Lars’s cubicle-mate’s vast collection of action figures, but I couldn’t help thinking shouldn’t those be Lars’s action figures? I mean, on some level what is a Real Doll but a G.I. Joe designed to sate the libido rather than the imagination? (Instead of a kung-fu grip you have far more disturbing features)

 

 

And this brings up one of the bigger problems with the movie. In its efforts to be cute and palatable, it skips over the issue of sex altogether. Bianca sleeps in Gus and Karin’s guestroom, “until we know each other better.” (Lars’s words, not Bianca’s, obviously) And the there are a couple scenes of the townspeople assuring themselves that Lars isn’t doing that with Bianca. As a matter of fact, the only acknowledgement that Bianca was designed for loveless, horny men to go to town on is when Karin sneaks a peek up Bianca’s skirt and confirms that, yes, she’s anatomically correct down there (one wonders what Lars did with the different tongues and pubic-hair swatches that come with the dolls as accessories).

 

 

This flies in contrast to one of the subjects in Guys and Dolls who bluntly states that “as a companion, they [Real Dolls] are rubbish.” The maker of Real Dolls insists that his products are good therapy for men who simply can’t form an emotional bond with a woman, and may actually help them to eventually do just that. I’d probably tell myself that too if I had that job.

 

 

I guess the biggest reason this movie didn’t work for me is that the world of Lars and the Real Girl is very shallow compared to the men featured in the article or Guys and Dolls. They’re not emotionally-sandblasted husks like Lars, but seemingly normal (for the most part), everyday people with some important pieces of their psyches missing. I guarantee you that nothing about Lars is nearly as fascinating as some time spent at some of Davecat’s web sites. Lars is just more palatable.

 

 

And that might be Lars and Real Girl’s biggest cheat. As shameful as it might be, exploring the world of Real Dolls brings with it a tremendous feeling of relief and, yes, superiority. My love-life may be bad right now, but thank God I’m not as messed-up as one of these guys. That was the joke inherent in the text-message to the work-wife, and in her reply.

 

 

I hope.

 

 

(Of course, if they make one that looks like Freema Agyemon all bets are off).