Who's in It: Ryan Gosling, Paul Schneider, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson, Kelli Garner
The Basics: A lonely man (Gosling), living in his brother's garage, orders a Real Doll for companionship, names it Bianca and seemingly never once has sex with it. From the moment she arrives, he begins treating her like she's real and expects other people to do the same. This, understandably, causes the people in his tightly-knit small Wisconsin town to react with concern.
What's the Deal? What's wonderful about this movie is that they could have made it into a one-joke, smirking, indie-film version of Mannequin or Weekend at Bernies, but instead they took everyone's secret thoughts about perverted sex to their logical conclusion. Because these Real Dolls are real products that anyone in real life can buy. And you know you think that the people who get them are pathetic and sad (or John Waters, but that's a whole other mindset). So the movie takes that state of sadness and finds the humor and humanity in it.
Movie It's Actually Most Like: A sweet 2001 film called Big Eden, about a lonely gay man who moves back to his tiny Wyoming town, only to find himself embraced and cared for in a way he could never find in New York City. It's a fantasy about a specific type of small-town life that rarely exists in the real world, one that movies love to mine. But it's such strong fantasy because it offers the possibility of the existence of unconditional love no matter where you happen to live.
Who Makes It Work: Gosling is the perfect guy to play Lars. He's a smart enough actor to know that this character can't be seen as a creep; he has to be wounded instead. And he's also smart enough to know how to make his puppy-dog cuteness work for the camera.
Co-Starring "Bianca": I don't know who built the doll for the movie, but I went to Realdoll.com to find her, and the best I could come up with is that she's something like a cross between the "Stephanie" and the "Stacy." You have to be 18 to go to that site, too, or else you'll see fake women (and one fake man) with equally fake naked parts. Just so you know.