Elyzabeth Lauryl Nagode Film & Cinema Eric Robert Wilkinson 05/03/2011 Midterm Film Analysis Lars and

the Real Girl One of the most enduring, and imminently interesting paradoxes raised by the idea of religion is its requirement to believe in something that, by its very nature, cannot be proven to exist. It is a paradox whose resolution has remained at the center of intellectual inquiry for thousands of years, inspiring the development of new epistemologies based on logic and reason that have profoundly advanced man's ability to understand the world in which he lives, and have led, over the last one hundred years, to the formal academic study and analysis of the very phenomenon of religion itself. While films on the subject have traditionally tended to address this paradox by expressing the way in which faith elicits the strongest and most deeply moving of human emotions, an increasing number have chosen to focus on the issue of faith itself. Among these, one of the simplest and seemingly least concerned with religion, Lars and the Real Girl, asks us to consider, not why we believe, or what it means to believe in something that may not actually exist, but if it ultimately matters whether or not it even exists at all. The film, released in 2007, bills itself as an "off-beat and endearing" romantic comedy (DVD box notes). Written by Nancy Oliver (Six Feet Under),

the narrative revolves around the delusional, romantic but chaste relationship its protagonist, Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling), forms with a lifelike sex doll he purchased on-line named Bianca, and how that relationship comes to impact the lives of everyone it touches. The significance of the narrative lies in its presentation and development of Bianca an actual character in the film through her interaction with Lars and the people who share his life. There is no question that she is not real, and both Oliver and director Craig Gillespie go to such great lengths to make sure this is never a question that there are times when the viewer is left to wonder if Lars himself is actually aware that she's not really real as well. That there is some rational basis for treating her as if she were real is also essential to establishing the film's underlying thesis with regard to faith. The psychologist who sees Lars informs his family that he has "deep psychological problems" that he's "working through" with Bianca related to his mother's death during childbirth, and the effect that event had on his relationship with both his father and the older brother in whose garage he now lives. The family is encouraged to indulge his delusion as therapeutic. As Lars begins to integrate his relationship with Bianca into more and more parts of his life, others are also asked, and agree to indulge in his delusion as well. That the issue of faith lies at the heart of Oliver's intent with the film is made evident by her choice to focus almost exclusively on the way in which

this delusion is indulged by fellow members of the church Lars attends. Oliver establishes early on that the church constitutes one of the only avenues for social interaction in which Lars willingly participates outside of work. It is to the church board that his family first makes it appeal for the acceptance of Bianca as a congregant. It is the members of the church who are seen interacting with her. It is through the relationships they develop with her that she finds her own place, purpose, and meaning in the community at large. It is through their burial of her, and the service they conducted to honor her memory, that Oliver makes it clear that the experience of something as real is, at its most basic level, what actually makes it real ... whether that something is a sex-doll or God. Oliver also strongly suggests that the ability to have this kind of faith is neither childish nor naive, but, rather, a mark of maturity. At one point in the film, the pastor delivers a sermon based the passage found at 1 Corinthians 13:11 that reads, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (King James Bible). Later in the film, Lars says to his brother, "I was talking to Bianca, and she was saying that in her culture they have these rites of passages and rituals and ceremonies, and, just all kinds of things that, when you do them, go through them, let you know that you're an adult." A few lines later, after being asked what it means to be a man, his brother responds by telling him, "Well it's not like one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside, but you... you ... you grow up when you

decide to do right, okay? And not what's right for you, what's right for everyone. Even when it hurts." It is through the belief Lars has that Bianca is real, and, more specifically through the feelings he allows himself to develop for her as a result of believing that she's real, that Lars is finally to become the kind of man his brother is talking about. Just two scenes after this exchange, Lars tries to wake Bianca only to find her unconscious and determines, in his delusion, that she is dying. Within days, he allows himself to feel the pain of letting her die, and, by sharing his grief with the other members of the church to whom she'd also become real, he puts away the childish insecurities that held him back from becoming a fully-realized adult capable of interacting with that community. This association between faith and maturity, like many of the other ideas presented in the film, is grounded in the reality of what that faith has the power to do. It is easy to dismiss as irrational the idea that faith can move mountains, heal the sick, or bring the dead back to life. It is not so easy to dismiss, on that basis, the power it has, as revealed in Lars and the Real Girl, to move one man beyond the wounds of childhood that held him helpless captive to the ghosts of his past, or to move an entire community to achieve new heights of understanding, compassion, and tolerance for their fellow man. This is the kind of maturity that Oliver asks us to associate with faith, and the potential for excellence suggested by that kind of maturity that she

asks that we consider as making irrelevant any question of it being a matter of reason. Religion may fundamentally involve itself with issues of the divine, but it is, at least according to Oliver, an essentially human experience that does not require there to be any God at all.