The world of cinema is filled with all kinds of loners and losers and many would say that that is because screenwriters themselves are often either loners or losers. But seriously, we as audience members tend to find these guys endearing, people worth rooting for because they’re the underdog and nothing ever comes easy for them. They’re awkward in social situations, they sometimes say the wrong thing and that’s even if their crippling shyness allows them to say anything at all. With all that in mind and more, we get Lars and the Real Girl, part of Canadian actor Ryan Gosling’s obsessive quest to prove that playing a conventional romantic lead, like the kind in The Notebook, is meaningless to him.

Lars (Gosling) is the name of a terribly reserved young man living in small town middle America. He’s made a nice little place for himself in the garage of his parents’ house, which both he and his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) share ownership of having inherited it from their parents. Gus’ expecting wife Karin (Emily Mortimer) tries her best to engage Lars by inviting him to meals and trying to persuade him to move into the main house, but Lars won’t have any of it.

One day there’s a knock on the door. Lars says he’s met someone online and she’s come to town to meet him for the first time. Gus and Karin are naturally ecstatic until Lars brings in a sophisticated sex doll named Bianca, dressed up as a paraplegic missionary from Central America. According to the local shrink (Patricia Clarkson), Lars is de-compensating for something and encourages everyone to go along the illusion so Lars can work through whatever he needs to. Slowly, Lars starts to come out his shell with the help of his brother, his sister-in-law, the townsfolk and the new girl at work, Margo (Kelli Garner).

I wasn’t sure about Lars going in; the trailer did occasionally strike me as maybe a bit too out there, threading that fine line between inclusive oddness to exclusive weirdness. The former version of that is endearing, the latter turns you off because what’s blatant on screen is a person or persons that you know would never act that way in real life. I’m pleased to say that Lars isn’t one of those. The characters of Lars’ world are perfectly genuine even if they sometimes skewer to the demented. We may not have ever known someone exactly like Lars, but we all know the type and we all know how people sometimes reacted to them.

As Lars, Ryan Gosling gets to hide his pretty, heartthrob good looks under an ugly hair cut and Burt Reynolds ‘stache. Smartly, he doesn’t play Lars as mental but rather misunderstood; he’s a person that has spent too much time out to sea in his own, little inner-universe and as a result can’t cope as well with outside forces. Aside from playing the straight man in the midst of his own absurdity, Gosling gets to show some emotional range too. Yes, Lars has serious issues. But this isn’t a one man show either, Gosling is backed up well by Schneider as his doubting but loving brother, Mortimer as his loving and believing sister-in-law and Clarkson as the psychiatrist walking a thin line in handling Lars delusion.

The great thing about Lars is that the characters and their problems aren’t played for cheap laughs. It’s a character piece and not a piece about characters; a complete screenplay with a story to tell, not some sketch with stick figure characterization. I know that a lot of reviewers haven’t been able to feel the love on this one and that’s too bad because I’ve seen quirky and I’ve seen I’ve seen crazy. I’ve seen the effects of both on a finished film because a filmmaker wasn’t bright enough to realize that these things make up the rich tapestry of a person and not just the sole defining element. I have seen Lars and the Real Girl and believe me when I say that this is not the description for this movie.