The Scenes that Made Me: Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

Lars looking on wistfully while ingesting his sister-in-law's retort to his rant
Video clip

Content warning: this post unavoidably and briefly touches on some "mature" topics

If you had told me six months ago that one of my favorite movies of all time would be a bout a man who buys a sex doll, I would've said, "Nice try, now please go away."

Lars and the Real Girl is paradoxically about a very innocent-hearted person that purchases a very-not-innocent, er... accessory. The plot line of slowly unraveling and healing Lars' mental illness is fascinating in itself, but the way the town and the church rallies around Lars in his delusion is incredibly heart-warming and honestly convicting. It helped me frame my understanding of church and community in a way that was a lot less critical and honestly less self-centered.

To briefly summarise the set-up of the film, Lars purchases a "real doll" online, and when she arrives, he presents her to his family members (his brother and sister-in-law) as his girlfriend. When they question him and insist that she's not real, he completely ignores them, pretending that "Bianca" is a very real human, but merely disabled and not able to move on her own accord. They understandably take him to the doctor to get his noggin checked, and the doctor says that he is suffering under a delusion and there's no way to force him to face reality, but that they must let it play out, and try to draw him out of it gradually.

The one scene in this movie that grabbed me was a brief altercation between Lars and his sister-in-law. Lars is frustrated because the community is taking Bianca on so many excursions. Of course, they're doing it to limit his time with her (for his mental health, not necessarily for prudish reasons), but he interprets it as them meddling in his life, and he begins a rant about it until his sister-in-law cuts him short:

Lars storms through the Lindstrom house, ranting, while Karin is doing pregnant woman yoga in the family room.

LARS
She’s my girlfriend, and I shouldn't have to check a schedule to see her!

Karin falls out of her pose.

EXT. BACKYARD — MOMENTS LATER

Lars paces around by the firewood, muttering to himself in a little boy’s rage. Karin comes out to see what’s going on. She’s surprised, he so rarely exhibits emotion.

KARIN
You ok?

LARS
How'd she feel if I just left her. If I just abandoned her like that—

KARIN
Wait, wait, she didn't abandon you, she'll be back.

LARS
How do I know that? Huh? People do whatever they want, they don't care!

Karin gets mad.

KARIN
No, we all care, Lars. We do care.

LARS
No, you don't!

KARIN
That is— that is just not true! God! Every person in this town bends over backwards to make Bianca feel at home! Why — why do you think she has so many places to go and so much to do? Huh?
Huh?

LARS
I don't—

KARIN
Because of YOU, because all these people people LOVE you.

We push her wheelchair, we drive her to work, we drive her home, we wash her, we dress her, we get her up, we put her to bed, we carry her... and she is not petite, Lars, Bianca is a big, big girl! None of this is easy for any of us, but we do it, w— (voice breaks)
We do it for YOU. So don’t you DARE tell me how we don’t care.

She walks back in the house and slams the door. Lars, spent, tries to figure it all out.

That scene was extremely memorable to me, because it reminds me of conversations I've had with family members over the years, when I was self-absorbed and extremely pessimistic (which I lean towards all too often). It made me realize just how much so many people have bent over backwards for me, out of love, just to make me happy, when it was never really enough for me and all I could see in anything was the downsides.

It was, in all, an incredibly uplifting and pure-hearted film, despite the awkward star (and I don't mean Ryan Gosling 😄).

Previous entries in this series:
Star Trek
Star Wars

100 Days to Offload 2025 - Day 33