BOY meets life-size silicone mannequin in “Lars and the Real Girl,” an offbeat comedy that plays as if Preston Sturges came back to life and collaborated with the Coen Brothers on an updated version of the Jimmy Stewart film “Harvey.” The setting is a very flat Midwestern town, where the lonely, over weight and socially mal adroit office worker Lars (a pitch-perfect Ryan Gosling) hears one day that anatomi cally correct “girls” are available on the In ternet.
He sends for one, but doesn’t use it for sex. In stead, he introduces “her” as Bianca, his new Swedish-Brazilian girlfriend, to his bewildered brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Gus’ very preg nant wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer).
While the properly chaperoned Bianca moves into their guest bedroom, Lars – who carries psychic scars that are gradually revealed over the course of the flick – continues to live qui etly in the garage and gradually emerges from his shell.
A sympathetic doctor (Patricia Clarkson) recommends that Gus and his wife support Lars’ delusion. She believes it serves a purpose at this point in his life.
Gradually, the entire snow-covered community (even the girl with a not-so-secret crush on Lars, nicely played by Kelli Garner) comes to put aside their snickers and welcome Bianca, who becomes a cherished hospital volunteer.
This might sound pretty creepy on paper, but it doesn’t seem smarmy at all on the screen, thanks to a completely straight performance by Gosling, who has demonstrated his extreme versatility in films such as “Half Nelson” (netting an Oscar nomination as an addicted teacher) and the four-handkerchief “The Notebook.”
The script by “Six Feet Under” writer Nancy Oliver eschews cheap laughs for character-driven humanist comedy, and is sensitively directed by Craig Gillespie (whose recent debut film, the abominable “Mr. Woodcock,” was taken out of his hands). 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.
Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG- 13 (some sexual references). At the Chelsea and the Angelika.