The Impossibility of Being Alone: Lars and The Real Girl

 by Ian Sidney Lewis

We are so very lonely.

In 2023, that’s a fact. Symptoms of depression, reports of alienation, and diagnoses of social anxiety have all risen dramatically over the past few decades, especially among young adults. It wasn't so long ago when the vast majority of the country was isolated in their homes, rightfully concerned about what ills could come with social interaction and yet feeling the pains of that isolation all the same. We are social beings, living in a world that feels increasingly distant and feeling increasingly unknown.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It may seem taboo to talk about a lack of connection in an issue so foremostly celebrating it. In fact, this is an issue celebrating it in its most potent, ardent, typified form: love, particularly love in the media of film and television, where its typification usually switches into exaggeration. I think, however, love in relation to being alone is one of the most important fashions love exists. I also think that there are few other ways in which to lead into the explanation of this film this essay ostensibly is about. That film is Lars and the Real Girl. a 2007 film directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya; Cruella; Fright Night) and starring Ryan Gosling (literally me). 

The movie is hard to describe in a way that I feel satisfied with. It's a tremendous performance from Gosling. It's a film whose cinematography shines through in some beautiful scenes, especially in its deliberate and careful use of the beautiful "Wisconsin" wilderness. If I had to give one explanation as to this film, then I would say that Lars and the Real Girl is a warm, comforting meditation on love and the way we connect with other human beings. If I had to give two, then I would also say Lars and the Real Girl is a movie about a man who falls in love with a sex doll. 

Lars, a deeply shy Wisconsinite, falls into a delusional state believing that an anatomically-correct sex doll is both alive and the perfect woman for him: a paraplegic Brazilian-Danish orphan missionary named Bianca. His sister-in-law and brother, along with the rest of his small town, try to deal with and understand his situation. What shocks about the film the most, looking back, is not the sex doll but how carefully the depiction of the neuroses, traumas, and anxieties that lead Lars to this place.

The film's real core is found within Lars himself. Rather than making that a joke or playing it off, the struggle to get better is played as serious a thing as it is. Empathy emerges in a shocking counter to the average viewer's expectation of a mean-spirited mockery of mental health coming from a 2007 "romcom". His traumas are what fuel his delusions - Lars is still affected by the death of his mother during his birth and feels physical pain at the touch of others, all the while terrified of society. He refuses to even stay in the house he co-owns, so as to not put pressure on his brother's pregnant wife. Gosling has always acted at his best as an outcast, as the man out of place, and the same is true here, Lars almost eternally out of his element. 

The care and the grace of the film are exemplified most by its supporting cast. Lars is surrounded the entire time by people who care about him and want him to get better. Gus and Karin, the brother and sister-in-law, are the first to "meet" Bianca and are fittingly shocked and discomforted by Lars's breaks in reality, but push themselves beyond their initial reception when told that the only way for Lars to get better is to lean into it. The townsfolk, even after initial skepticism, rises above their baser instincts and accepts both Lars and his beliefs. The illusion of normalcy is broken, as the town begins accepting and playing into the existence of Bianca. We come to find there is a little bit of Lars in all of them - found in Margo's childish obsession with her teddy bear, in Dagmar's frozen grief, and in Gus's shame for abandoning his brother. All of them are, just a little bit, broken, too.

The true power of love within the film is not found in its romantic sense. In fact, despite its billing and portrayal as a romance, romantic love is firmly in the back seat throughout. Even the imagined relationship between Lars and Bianca is hardly romantic, despite Lars's claims to the contrary. It is thoroughly chaste and, in fact, mostly lacks any romantic contact. Instead, he reads to her, takes care of her, and thoroughly keeps her - "she" is something he can control in a world he is terrified by. She is an expression of his desperation for love and yet his inability to do so, as this delusion's purpose becomes clear, as both a way to heal from his grief and to attempt to figure out how to bring himself to love. We see Lars lash out when that control is taken from him and Bianca begins to take on a life of her own in the minds of others. It is also here that we see that platonic love violently explode, as Karin finally calls him out for a selfishness inherent to his assumptions about the world - when you assume people only think the worst of you, you assume the worst of them. The only way we can love is to realize that we can be loved.

We are lonely, yes, but we are not alone. We are never alone. In a world of increasing isolation and tumult, we have to remember that just as much as we are searching for that connection, other people are, too. The fear we can feel from reaching out, from trying to connect with other people, can feel insurmountable, but we should remember that there are people on the other side of that wall we're climbing. Love is stronger and more common than you think. In a month where I'm sure plenty of us have been recently reminded of how lonely we feel, sometimes we need to be reminded of that, too. 

There are few movies that try to say something and say it right. Lars and the Real Girl comes close. That’s all I can ask of it.