Movie Review: Lars and the Real Girl

It takes a special kind of actor to turn the story of a man and his relationship with a life-size sex doll into a genuinely moving love story. Luckily Ryan Gosling is that kind of actor. In Lars and the Real Girl, the young star who first made his name a Neo-Nazi in The Believer and was Oscar-nominated for last year's Half Nelson plays Lars, an emotionally troubled man who lives in a small Wisconsin community.

Damaged by the death of both his parents, Lars lives in the garage of his brother Gus's house, and is unable to endure any form of physical contact. Gus and his wife Karin are delighted when Lars announces he has a new girlfriend called Bianca. Unfortunately Bianca turns out to be an anatomically correct mail-order sex doll, who Lars believes is a living, breathing lady.

Inevitably, Lars and the Real Girl is a humorous film. Many of the early scenes involving Lars introducing Bianca to his family and workmates are played for gentle laughs. But the impressive thing about Craig Gillespie's film is that the potential ridiculousness of the situation never overcomes the film. As the community rally round the fragile Gus to help him with his delusional state and join him in treating Bianca as one of them, the movie changes from the story of a crazy bloke and his sex toy to a well-judged drama about loneliness and the fragility of the human mind.

Even though she's made of silicone, Bianca manages to deliver a better performance than Kiera Knightley or Katie Holmes have yet managed – in fact, had Holmes taken over the role of the doll halfway through I doubt I'd have noticed.

But it's Gosling who makes Lars and the Real Girl work. The film could have so easily turned into either a juvenile sex comedy or horrible I Am Sam-style slice of mental illness mawkishness, but Gosling reigns in the quirks and sells the concept, making Lars a likeable weirdo who is only a little bit stranger than the rest of us.