In the movie Lars and the Real Girl, filmmaker Craig Gillespie tells the story about a shy, socially awkward man named Lars Lindstrom who lives in a small garage of his brother, Gus and his sister-in-law, Karin’s house. Lars barely gets into human contact that even the people he is close to, are sort of like strangers to him. If he does get into human contact, he would always try to get away from it as soon as possible. Lars buys a life-sized sex-doll and builds an imaginary boyfriend-girlfriend relationship with it.
Bianca is also someone he could interact with in his own world. He trusts Bianca. The whole town helps Lars, because they care for him, by also pretending that Bianca is real to help him get through his delusion. Lars changes from being isolated because he learns everyone around him loves him, and he learns to interact with people with the simplest things Initially, Lars is very isolated from the outside world. He is very lonely because he spends more time by himself rather than the people he knows. The community tries to connect to him and his peers but he will not let them.
Karin always tries to connect with him by inviting him to breakfast, or dinner, oping that it can help him be more social and to show him that being alone is not a good thing. Lars is internally framed countless times showing how he is trapped. Lars is staring outside his window, it shows that there is a big world out there, but he will not be capable to explore it. When Lars catches Karin at the corner of his eye walking towards the garage, he hides. This shows that he does not get something that everyone else has or needs which is any kind of contact with another human being.
When Karin invites him, he kindly declines saying, “l can’t, have to go to church” in way to avoid the nvitation. Karin also is like a mother figure to Lars, since he never grew up with a mother. However, Lars has a delusional disorder making him believe that Bianca, a life size sex doll he bought of a site called RealDoIl is an actual female. He creates a romantic relationship with it, making him think he is actually getting human contact. Lars says, “I wanted to tell you that you look pretty today. ” just like how someone in a real relationship would compliment.
In Lars’ eyes, Bianca is real but in everyone else’s eyes, Bianca is just a doll. He also has a brother, but their relationship is not strong. Lars does not interact with his brother as much after he left Lars with their father who rarely spoke with them, after their mother had died. Since Gus left, Lars had to grow up with a brother he had a weak relationship with, a father who was never really there and no memory of his mother except a blanket she made for Lars before she passed away. Because Of Bianca, Lars is now at the beginning Of connecting to the outside world.
Consequently, Lars becomes closer to the people around him and builds better relationships with a lot of people because of Bianca. He sees how uch people really care for him. Lars goes to a lot of places with Bianca and ends up talking and meeting new people because of Bianca. When he brings Bianca with him to a party, he is actually able to communicate with people because he is speaking for two people. Bianca cannot speak, so Lars has to talk for her. That means, he would be talking to people he would not normally be talking to. As he continues to speak for Bianca, he is starting to become more comfortable around other people.
Lars builds a strong relationship with Doctor Dagmar because she was helping him take care of someone he cares bout so much, even though she was actually helping Lars instead. Lars didn’t know that people really cared for him until Karin said “Every person bends over backwards just to make Bianca feel at home; why do you think she has so many places to go and so much to do? Huh? Huh? Because all these people love you! We do it for you! ” Lars finally realized that people do care for him and that they use most of their time just for Lars just so he could feel that he fits in.
The funeral Was not Only for the loss Of Bianca, but the loss of the Old Lars that everyone once knew and the welcoming of the new Lars that veryone wants to know. Finally, from building so many new relationships, Lars wants to keep and continue them. He has gotten so much closer to the community and especially Margo that he starts to forget about Bianca. Lars and Margo go bowling one night and as they were leaving they shake hands. Also, Lars pats Karin’s baby belly without any refusal. Lars never liked the concept of touch because he would say it burnt. Now he is more comfortable with doing new things. Lars and Margo go on walk at the end.
This shows that Lars has already moved on and is already pursuing something new. Lars learns that being an outsider is not a good thing. He is not the person who would try to avoid being with people now. In conclusion, Lars changes from isolating himself from the outside world, not allowing anyone to help him, trapping himself. Lars is loved and supported by his community and more thoughtful towards his actions that made him into a new person. Lars is the character that experienced the greatest change Lars is still unsure about a few things, but he has changed drastically, and is still changing from the person he was to the person he is now.
