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A 2007 comedy/drama film, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Ryan Gosling.
Lars is a quiet, somewhat asocial man. He lives in a garage next to his brother Gus' house, and has a crippling fear of personal interaction. One day, he comes to Gus' door and says that he's met a girl over the internet — a sweet, wheelchair-bound missionary named Bianca. Gus and his expecting wife, Karin, are eager to agree that she can stay over. But the "girl" turns out to be a bit less...alive than they imagined. It seems that Lars has finally gone crazy, and has fallen in love with a Real Doll sex doll, believing she's a real woman.
After taking Bianca and Lars to see the family doctor/psychologist, Gus and Karin are told that, for whatever reason, Lars has convinced himself that Bianca is alive. Trying to tell him otherwise would only hurt his already fragile mental condition. So they, and the rest of their small town, all agree to play along with the illusion simply to make Lars feel at home with his new love.
This film provides examples of:[]
- Adorkable: Margo and Lars are this to an extreme
- Allergic to Love: Lars literally runs away from Margo when she tries to approach him after church
- Ambiguous Disorder: Big time.
- Character Development: Lars goes from being painfully shy to becoming a rather talkative individual
- Companion Cube: Bianca to Lars
- Death by Childbirth: spoiler:Lars and Gus' mother. This and Lars' treatment at the hands of his heartbroken father give Lars a fear of childbirth, especially in regard to Karin's soon-to-be-born baby.
- Death of the Hypotenuse: Bianca; could also be seen as Murder the Hypotenuse, as Lars was the one who said she was dying
- Girl in a Box: Bianca
- Hates Being Touched: Played very much not for laughs, Lars' mind interprets any kind of physical contact as pain.
- I Have This Friend: Bianca, like Lars, lost both of her parents at a young age - her mother even died in childbirth.
- Massive Multiplayer Scam: the entire town knows Lars' new "girlfriend" is a sex doll. They pretend she's real anyways, going so far as to give her a job and take her to volunteer events
- Meaningful Funeral: Bianca's
- Method Acting: Bianca was treated as a real actor during production, and had her own trailer. The DVD even has an interview with her and Ryan Gosling.
- Minnesota Nice: The townspeople and their gradual acceptance of Bianca.
- Operation: Jealousy: It's implied that Margo was only dating someone to get Lars to notice her.
- Pregnant Badass: Karin tackles Lars to the ground in order to get him to come to dinner
- Product Placement: One big ... really wacky and emotional product placement for Real Dolls.
- Single-Issue Psychology: Averted. Lars' psychological problems come from an entire childhood spent with an emotionally distant father who acted like he blamed Lars for his mother's death.
- Snow Means Love: a end-of-season flurry greets Lars and Margo outside the bowling alley.
- Super Doc: Dagmar is both a medical doctor and a psychiatrist because "you have to be this far north."
- Tear Jerker: Bianca's "death"
- The Woobie: Lars