Lars and the Real Girl

Nancy Oliver came across the RealDoll site, which the film itself names, while researching an article on strange websites, and wrote the script in 2002. It placed 3rd on the 2005 Black List. Craig Gillespie’s film is set in Wisconsin but was shot in Ontario, in towns such as Elora and Uxbridge. The credits list a handler for Bianca and an assistant handler under her. The town joining in is set up as an instruction, not a whim. The family doctor Dagmar Berman is also a psychologist; she prescribes weekly treatments for Bianca while the person she is really watching is Lars. The townspeople fill Bianca’s schedule with volunteer work and meetings to reduce his dependence, so what keeps the doll away from him is a calendar, not mockery. It opened on 7 screens in New York and Los Angeles, widened to 321 theatres, and its worldwide gross stopped at 11.3 million dollars. Oliver was nominated for the original screenplay Oscar, which Juno won. Ryan Gosling was a Golden Globe nominee for musical or comedy actor, where Johnny Depp won. A good fit if you want the doll treated as a therapy the town agrees to, not as a punchline. Not for anyone expecting crude comedy from the premise; the frame the doctor sets does not allow it.