(2007) Though this movie's premise in isolation like the recipe of waxworm spring salad (with moth larvae, Queen Atta ants, and stinkbugs) might discourage viewing, you would miss out on a surprisingly appetizing dish - "crispy, meaty, flavorful." Mental illness is not necessarily an illness, Dr Dagmar Berman (Patricia Clarkson) tries to explain to Gus (Paul Schneider) and his wife Karin Lindstrom (Emily Mortimer) when speaking of Gus's younger brother Lars (Ryan Gosling), who acts as if a love doll he calls Bianca were a real person; sometimes it's a way of communicating or working a problem through.

The fairytale aspect of this film, directed by Craig Gillespie from Nancy Oliver's screenplay, isn't Lars's relationship with the doll (no sex acts occur) but the wholehearted concern, compassion, cooperation, and understanding everyone in the community (supposedly a small rural town in North Dakota or Minnesota) shows toward Lars by accepting Bianca as a person. (A few guys make comments away from Lars, such as, "Wish I had a woman who couldn't talk," but no one acts like a jerk.) "She just wants to be normal," Lars tells Dr Berman, herself a childless widow, "and to have everyone treat her as normal."

No one makes fun of Lars when he brings Bianca into church in a wheelchair nor at Cindy's party for the company staff (thanks to Margo's memo about Lars's disorder); Bianca gets a part-time job as a manikin in a store window and another "reading" to children at the hospital. Feeling sorry for himself after having his first argument with Bianca, Lars begins to take out his frustrations on Karin, who counters: "Don't you dare tell me we don't care."

At the film's outset, Karin, who's pregnant, is worried about her brother-in-law's living alone in the garage and keeping to himself. Lars declines offers to come over for meals and to live in the house that had belonged to his and Gus's parents. Wearing multiple layers of clothing, he dislikes hugs and being touched by others. Having lost his own mother, Lars suffers from an unrealized fear that Karin might die in childbirth or soon after.

The idea for obtaining a love doll arises when his cubemate Kurt at work shows Lars an Internet site where "You can design your own woman" (anatomically correct). Six weeks later when the box arrives, Lars tells Gus and Karin that he has a visitor he met online who doesn't speak much English (she's part Brazilian and part Danish), uses a wheelchair, and is very religious (a missionary on sabbatical). Since he doesn't think they should be living together in the garage, Lars asks a favor of allowing Bianca to stay in the pink room (formerly his mother's bedroom).

Initially they're thrilled for Lars until they see Bianca. "He's crazy," Gus exclaims to Karin: "My little brother is totally, totally insane." Serving the community as both family physician and psychologist, Dr Berman requests Lars to bring Bianca in for weekly treatments and tells Gus and Karin: "He appears to have a delusion." Gus makes an effort to speak straight to Lars: "She's not a person … a big plastic thing." But a delusion is a false belief as opposed to a hallucination, which is a false perception.

Meeting together, several members of the community attempt to come to grips with the problem in their midst and turn to Reverend Bock (R.D. Reid), who asks: "What would Jesus do?" Meanwhile at work, the new employee Margo (Kelli Garner), who takes an affectionate interest in Lars, deals with Kurt's immaturity by stealing his action figures; Kurt retaliates by hanging her teddy bear with a noose.

Soon after Lars's mother died when he was a child, Gus left his younger sibling with a grieving father; trying to make up for his earlier selfishness, Gus tries to answer Lars's question of how he knew he had become an adult: it was partly sex, but even more it was learning to be sensitive to others, not jerking them around; not cheating on a woman; and being able to admit when he's wrong.

Instead, Bianca - who says "no" when Lars asks her to marry him, or says "I don't know," or says nothing - becomes very ill. Rev Bock eulogizes: "Bianca touched us all in ways we couldn't imagine."

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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