At the start of LARS AND THE REAL GIRL, Lars (
Ryan Gosling) looks out on a bleak, wintry landscape. He's isolated and alone, even though he lives adjacent (albeit in a garage) to his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and his pregnant sister-in-law, Karin (
Emily Mortimer).Lars, who works in a generic cubicle at a generic office, can pass for merely socially awkward. But when his co-worker Margo (Kelli Garner) develops a crush on him, he's unable to respond. Instead, he turns to a porn Web site, where he orders a lifelike sex doll. She arrives in a box, and he names her Bianca and introduces her to Gus and Karin as his long-distance girlfriend who's come to visit. With eyebrows raised and glances exchanged, they go along with him, suggesting that they all take Bianca to see Dr. Berman (
Patricia Clarkson). Kindly and wise in the way that small-town doctors tend to be in the movies, she advises letting Lars gradually work out whatever trauma he's apparently feeling. "Chances are," she says, "he's been decompensating for some time."