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Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl

Drama · Romance · 2007

Extremely shy Lars finds it impossible to make friends or socialize. His brother and sister-in-law worry about him, so when he announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet, they are overjoyed. But Lars' new lady is a life-size plastic woman. On the advice of a doctor, his family and the rest of the community go along with his delusion.

Movie details

Lars and the Real Girl

“The search for true love begins outside the box.”

2007 Drama · Romance 1h 47m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.3 / 10

166.3K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

81 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

70 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.2 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Extremely shy Lars finds it impossible to make friends or socialize. His brother and sister-in-law worry about him, so when he announces that he has a girlfriend he met on the Internet, they are overjoyed. But Lars' new lady is a life-size plastic woman. On the advice of a doctor, his family and the rest of the community go along with his delusion.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Lars and the Real Girl?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Craig Gillespie

Written by

Nancy Oliver

Ryan Gosling

Ryan Gosling

Lars Lindstrom

Emily Mortimer

Emily Mortimer

Karin

Paul Schneider

Paul Schneider

Gus

R.D. Reid

R.D. Reid

Reverand Bock

Kelli Garner

Kelli Garner

Margo

Nancy Beatty

Nancy Beatty

Mrs. Gruner

Doug Lennox

Doug Lennox

Mr. Hofstedter

Court is in session

Put Lars and the Real Girl on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Adrenaline Seeker

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.