| 100 |
Wall Street Journal
It's nothing less than a miracle that the director, Craig Gillespie, and the writer, Nancy Oliver, have been able to make such an endearing, intelligent and tender comedy from a premise that, in other hands, might sustain a five-minute sketch on TV.
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| 91 |
Christian Science Monitor
The movie is an idyllic view of life as it ought to be, rather than the way it is.
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| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
The creators of this film were fiercely determined not to go so much as a millimeter over the line into sentiment, tawdriness or mockery. It's the rare film that is the best possible version of itself, but "Lars" fits that bill.
|
| 90 |
Washington Post
Gosling's performance is a small miracle, not only because he's so completely open as a man who's essentially shut off, but because he changes and grows so imperceptibly before our eyes.
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| 88 |
Chicago Sun-Times
How this all finally works out is deeply satisfying. Only after the movie is over do you realize what a balancing act it was, what risks it took, what rewards it contains. A character says at one point that she has grown to like Bianca. So, heaven help us, have we.
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| 88 |
Boston Globe
When a movie about a guy who orders a sex doll off the Internet can turn vice into virtue, something miraculous has occurred. Lars and the Real Girl achieves that kind of miracle.
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| 88 |
Premiere
Howard Karren
Lars's attraction to Bianca is like an audience's to an actor onscreen -- the object is fake, an approximation, but for some that's better than flesh and blood. Bianca is a work of art. And so is Lars and the Real Girl.
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| 88 |
USA Today
At a time when romantic comedies seem to have exhausted unique ideas, along comes Lars, an original, amusing and heartfelt tale sharply written by Nancy Oliver (Six Feet Under).
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| 80 |
The Hollywood Reporter
John DeFore
A deep, sweet-hearted study not only of one lonely character but also of the community that supports him.
|
| 80 |
Chicago Reader
Both hilarious and poignant, with a Capraesque humanity that caught me completely off guard.
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| 80 |
Empire
Helen O'Hara
A strangely affecting romance with real heart -- and another sign that Gosling is one of the best young actors around.
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| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
It takes a village, I've heard it said. It takes a village not only to raise a child but also, in this case, to aid the delusional and help restore good mental health. Or so Lars and the Real Girl would have us believe.
|
| 75 |
Miami Herald
Initially sounds perverted but ends up being just the opposite.
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| 75 |
Portland Oregonian
Gosling is excellent playing a character who's fundamentally unknowable.
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| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Of course, entire books have been written, and perused by disappointed women, about the male reluctance to put away their fantasized Biancas. In that sense, Lars and the Real Girl is real indeed. In every other, it's a sweet, bordering on saccharine, bagatelle.
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| 75 |
New York Daily News
Working with a doll can't be easy, but Gosling actually makes it feel emotionally real. A scene where he shares an imaginary dance with Bianca, with his eyes closed and a beatific smile on his face, is by itself worth the price of admission.
|
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle
A gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character.
|
| 75 |
ReelViews
While "quirky" is a good descriptor for the production, Lars and the Real Girl isn't so bizarre that mainstream movie goers will reject it. This is an offbeat independent production that could become one of those big little fall surprises.
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| 75 |
New York Post
It's a tribute to the filmmakers and cast that by the end of Lars and the Real Girl, you can almost accept that Bianca is, well, a real girl.
|
| 70 |
Newsweek
Gillespie’s movie walks a delicate line through a minefield of potential bad taste. Directed with patient, low-key sensitivity, it never goes for a cheap laugh at its protagonist’s expense.
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| 70 |
Variety
Alissa Simon
Helmer Craig Gillespie's sweetly off-kilter film plays like a Coen brothers riff on Garrison Keillor's "Lake Woebegone" tales, defying its lurid premise with a gentle comic drama grounded in reality.
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| 70 |
New York Magazine
Often howlingly funny, and the actors are a treat. But the underlying message is so suspect that it’s hard to suspend disbelief.
|
| 67 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
A sweet little comedy, as easygoing and warmly innocuous as the benign irony of the title.
|
| 63 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
By movie's end, it seems like the only one giving a truly genuine performance is Bianca. Mouth-agape, steadfastly mum.
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| 50 |
Charlotte Observer
You can approach it as a surreal story -- you'd have to, to find value in it -- but happy chuckles are miles away from the point.
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| 50 |
Slate
Dana Stevens
Heartfelt but muddled film.
|
| 50 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
In spite of the title, there's nothing particularly "real" about Lars And The Real Girl, just a couple layers of quirk several stops removed from the world as we know it.
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| 50 |
Entertainment Weekly
Really, I think we put up with Lars at all only because Gosling has such an affinity for the wounded boy birds he tends to play that it's easy to watch him do his thing.
|
| 50 |
The New York Times
It’s part comedy, part tragedy and 100 percent pure calculation, designed to wring fat tears and coax big laughs and leave us drying our damp, smiling faces as we savor the touching vision of American magnanimity. It holds a flattering mirror up to us that erases every distortion.
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| 50 |
TV Guide
Gosling is the film's salvation: He really is good enough to make this underwritten fantasy feel as though it amounts to something. But it doesn't.
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| 38 |
Chicago Tribune
I find Lars and the Real Girl adorable in the worst way, bailed out only by most every member of its excellent cast.
|
| 30 |
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
Lars and the Real Girl wobbles in a slow, toneless no-man's-land between mawkish and schmaltzy while trafficking shamelessly in heartland stereotypy.
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