Written by Six Feet Under scribe Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl is a heartfelt comedy starring Academy-Award nominated Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom a loveable introvert whose emotional baggage has kept him from fully embracing life. After years of what is almost solitude, he invites Bianca, a friend he met on the internet to visit him. He introduces Bianca to his Brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and his wife Karen (Emily Mortimer) and they are stunned. They don’t know what to say to Lars or Bianca – because she is a life-size doll, not a real person and he is treating her as though she is alive. They consult the family doctor Dagmar (Patricia Clarkson) who explains this is a delusion he’s created – for what reason she doesn’t yet know but they should all go along with it. What follows is an emotional journey for Lars and the people around him.

They called his condition "delusion" but the whole time I'm thinking "sociopath" - sure, he was functional (sort of) in his job and whatever, but he wouldn't let people touch him without freaking out and he was socially non-functional... To top that off, inanimate objects were talking to him and telling him what to do and he was doing these things - much like David Burkowitz listening to his dog when he told him to go kill those people.

Given that, I think the ending is pretty odd... he basically drowns this sex doll in the lake (he thinks she's alive) and then at the funeral he coldly asks the other girl to go for a walk... and the audience is supposed to accept that he's just completely cured of being an insane person because they buried his sex doll. I guess I would've at the very least liked to see some real evidence that he had gotten his shit together and snapped out of it - like if he would've admitted he knew she wasn't real, but that he needed it. Better left unsaid? I don't think so in this case.