Film

Lars and the Real Girl

Name: Lars and the Real Girl
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 2007
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, R.D. Reid, Kelli Garner

A shy, isolated young man in a snowbound small town brings home a life-sized doll and introduces her as his girlfriend. Rather than shatter his delusion, his family and neighbours quietly choose to play along - and the film turns that decision into something unexpectedly moving. Funny, sad, and sincere in ways that sneak up on you; for anyone who likes their comedies with real ache underneath.

TMDb rating

7.2

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A skeptical journalist investigates a man's claim to be a time traveler, and the film treats his delusion (or is it?) with the same generous curiosity as Lars's town treats his doll.

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A shambling family road trip full of misfits, failures and one very determined kid, held together by the same belief that love means showing up for someone's strangeness.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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Decades before Lars, this is the original town-humors-a-delusion story - a man's invisible six-foot rabbit companion, and the neighbors who decide indulging him is kinder than curing him.

James Stewart at his most gentle plays a man whose 'imaginary' friend forces everyone around him to question what sanity is actually for, in a black-and-white comedy that's warmer than it has any right to be.

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Ruby Sparks2012no page yet

A lonely writer conjures the girlfriend of his dreams onto the page and she becomes real - a sharper, funnier interrogation of what it means to love something you've invented.

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A death-obsessed young man falls for a septuagenarian free spirit, and the film insists - with total sincerity - that unconventional love deserves no one's permission.

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Guys and Dolls1955

This documentary follows real owners of silicone companion dolls - the actual subculture Lars's film borrows its premise from - asking the same tenderness question with no fiction to soften it.

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