sex dolls go mainstream: a more palatable take on mental illness

[I have a few older, half-written posts that I'm aiming to clean up here within the next couple days. Beware the rush of posts.]


Lars and the Real Girl is not a momentous film. Watching it is a basically pleasurable experience. It's a sweet little fantasy about a town that embraces the mental illness of one amongst its fold, rather than deriding it. For a whole town to agree to play along with a guy who falls in love with a sex doll-- going so far as to provide hospital care for her and elect her to the school board-- is droll as a concept. But clearly, to say that the idea stretches the boundaries of plausibility is an understatement.

I do not suggest that anyone desirous of seeing anything beyond a moderately schmaltzy, if quirky, "heartwarmer" see this movie. Movies like this abound. There are a million of them (Science of Sleep, Eternal Sunshine, Amelie, Punch-Drunk Love, to name but a few (I do pretty much like all those movies, by the way-- I do not mean to impugn them here.)). But not all of them showcase Ryan Gosling. Because the film itself is far from revelatory, the fact that Gosling's commitment to this character stands apart is all the more impressive. I think I heard a friend once say that she doesn't much care about "acting" because she thinks the only really good acting is the acting you don't notice. In other words, when a real person fades so deeply into an imaginary person that the imaginary person seems rea, it's good acting. (I tend to think this definition works in some cases and not so well in more stylized, but no less interesting, work.) Regardless, this definition of good acting certainly seems to describe Gosling's style.

I mean, this guy's most subtle of body language changes with each new person he inhabits-- the actor approaching a role like Gosling's in The Believer must certainly be a different sort than the actor approaching a role like his in Half Nelson. In both cases, Gosling carts in a realism of understatement. But his very molecular structure seems to shift between his parts. Example? His walk. I like to watch how men walk. The bodily rhythm as displayed in a person's gait is, without exception, unique. Some men walk well-- comfortably, loosely, inhabiting their bodies. And some men are awkward or jolting or tentative. The walk is more telling about a man's body, I think, than, more simply, the shape of his legs or his ass. Body shapes can be attractive unto themselves, but the respective attractiveness of any given body part loses relevance if it is not accompanied by a rhythmic context of movement. A gait is like a signature-- ostensibly idiosyncratic. So, Ryan Gosling is a cute guy. I watch him like I watch any other cute guy. I watch how he moves from film to film. The man has no signature. I swear. His entire body rhythm shifts and dissolves, apparition-like, into each individual character. And again, it's with characteristic understatement. I don't know how he does it.

So, what's remarkable about Gosling's performance in Lars and the Real Girl is really that he seems to be channeling Andy Kaufman. There is sweetness and soulfulness to the character of Lars that could be saccharine in lesser hands, but through Gosling, we see how frustrating Lars' commitment to his delusion is for those around him. He's irrational and that's annoying to sane people, right? And yet he's damaged and a little pitiful so everyone puts up with the crazy in favor of taking care of him. This has a feel very like Kaufman's Latka character from Taxi. And it's even more in keeping with Kaufman's day-to-day public persona as well. We were never quite sure when Kaufman was being Kaufman or when he was being someone slightly more-than-Kaufman, did we? And Gosling's facial expressions-- honestly, I'd be really surprised if Kaufman hadn't entered into his preparations for this part-- down to the sheer facial muscularity of them. Kaufman was interested in breaking the rules of comedy-- either with commitment to character to the point of extremism, or arbitrarily breaking character at will. And throughout this film, you can never quite abandon the thought that Lars is just about to cop to staging this elaborate practical joke. That you doubt Lars' delusions belies the particular care that Gosling brings to his acting, I think.

So, again, the film isn't revelatory. But I love watching Ryan Gosling. And not just because I wonder what his neck smells like. Oh, and Kelli Garner's actorly evolution (from Thumbsucker through London and Dreamland and now this, wherein she tones down the sexpot aspect but is no less appealing) is kind of exciting too.