Skip to main content

Real Community

I'm incredulous as to why I blew off Lars and the Real Girl for so long. Maybe it was the premise: lonely guy falls for sex doll. It sounds crass, but the movie is very sweet and Lars, played by Ryan Gosling, is ubersympathetic. Here's a character so emotionally crippled that human touch hurts him.






Even more amazing is that the community he lives in, some unidentified northern Midwestern town, goes along with his delusion, he treats Bianca, the doll, as if she were real, out of love for Lars. They create a convincing, though it would have been as tough as hell to actually live that out, beloved community. They allow Lars to work through his problems without judgment (for the most part) until he is ready to rejoin them. And yes, a church is part of the heart of this town. The writer and director create a world that is preposterous and real--and desirable! I think why can't I live in a town like that, better yet, what am I doing to create a town like that?

Oh yeah, Lars and the Real Girl is funny too.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Worth Quoting

There are but three social arrangements which can replace Capitalism: Slavery, Socialism, and Property.                                                                                                 --Hilaire Belloc                                                                                                The Servile State
8 comments
Read more

Good reads of 2009

I haven't made a list like this in a while, and I believe I discussed most of these on the blog as I finished them, but I thought I'd make a handy short-hand list for you and me. These are only in the order I read them and do not indicate any preference. The Open Door * Frederica Mathewes-Green The Children of Hurin * J.R.R. Tolkien The Omnivore's Dilemma * Michael Pollan Agrarianism and the Good Society: Land, Culture, Conflict, and Hope * Eric T. Freyfogle Wonderful Fool * Shusaku Endo Up the Rouge: Paddling Detroit's Hidden River * Joel Thurtell and Patricia Beck Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction: Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation * Rodney Clapp (I started the following in December, but I haven't finished them--so far they are excellent: Love and Hate in Jamestown * David A. Price and The Picture of Dorian Gray * Oscar Wilde) Try one of these--let me know.
6 comments
Read more

Independent Women?

      During breakfast today I was reading an excerpt from a play in The New York Times Magazine (I know, I was a day behind and read Saturday's edition yesterday) entitled Rust .  The play, written by a professor at Grand Valley State University, here in Michigan, is a nonfiction drama about the closing of a GM plant in Wyoming, MI.  The play itself sounds interesting and I enjoyed the excerpt, but what caught my eye was something a character said.  The character is "Academic" and plays a historian and guide to the playwright, also a character.  He is explaining the rise of the automobile factories and the effect of the car on American culture.  He says, "Women became independent, they go from producers of food and clothing to consumers of food and clothing."  This was meant as an earnest, praiseworthy point.     I would counter with "How far we've fallen."  To say that a woman (or a man) is independent because she has moved from producer to cons
6 comments
Read more