Lars and the real Girl

The "comedy" part mostly concerns the doll and how everyone reacts to it-the first few jokes are effective,but the later ones are repetitious and hollow like a bunch of silly gags stolen from a late-night sitcom.Waitress,another aspiring indie flick-had a shit ending and so-so story,but the jokes were almost always spot-on.With Lars,a brilliant stroke of dark humor appears occasionally,when you find yourself laughing but also feeling great pity-these are the film's most indispensable moments,the rest-I hate to say it-is just ordinary.

Having made his mark with an Oscar-nominated role in Half Nelson-here Ryan Gosling plays it one-note,although to be fair until his character goes through the motions near the end there's not much to do but to flare out Lars' peculiar habits-his constant shutting of eyes,turning away coyly and genial wide smile and try to do what he can with that.Lars does come off genuinely adorable early on,but once the doll appears he's quickly a kook and the psychological reasons behind his "delusion" are explored with fascination at first,but once they've laid down all the "Oh-my-god-it's-a-goddamn-doll" jokes down they start straying off to other parts of Lars' life-some of which do turn out interesting (i.e his relationship with office-mate Molly,who has had a long-time crush on him) but still prove digressional.It would've been interesting to see how the "delusion" came up-sure there are a few lines here and there hinting to it (people referring to the past with lines that start with "I should've not..") but overall the psychological part of the story,even with the presence of a character who's a psychologist,is considered only as a minor point.

Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson especially,give winning performances,and the only sticky thorn in the cast is the husband-figure (brother to Lars) Gus who is written and acted to be so spiteful and selfish he seems like a character off Friends (again,Lars' prominent sitcom feel)-he could be Rachel's sexy-but-narcissistic boyfriend who everyone loathes but his presence inspires comedic situations,all he does is scorn and roll eyes that when he finally does offer a modicum of sincerity it seems vastly superficial.

Finally,the ultimate message put forward or the fruit the whole story eventually bears turns out like something your mom might say after you've done something wrong ("Next time,be more careful with the glasses")-so light and frail,as a result Lars delivers a blow that barely registers.