Lars and the Real girl

Lars(Ryan Gosling) is the increasingly withdrawn autistic younger brother of Gus (Paul Schneider) and brother in law to the earth mother Karin (Emily Mortimer) in a small American mid west town during a snowbound winter. Watched by supportive townsfolk, Lars introduces a latex sex doll to all, and states that she is his new girlfriend.
Sounds dreadful doesn't it? but this indi movie homage to all those pseudo-psychiatric tales we have seen before (Harvey, Ordinary People, Marnie etc etc) is the sweetest of stories, and works on many gentle levels. The whole film is essentially a fairy tale, with benign psychiatrist ( Patricia Clarkson ,my favourite actress behind laura Linney), being wonderfully wise and daring; pragmatic church elder, Nancy Beatty being the "accepting" face of small town America that embraces Lars' needs for his delusions and all the other simple town folk are portrayed with a smiling warmth that only exists in Hollywood and Norman Rockwell paintings.
Lars and the Real Girl (2007) at Theatre Clwyd tonight, works well because of the ensemble cast.Gosling is believable ( and in one key scene when he dances awkwardly at a friend's party, terribly moving) as the unhappy Lars. Schneider and Mortimer act quite beautifully, as the loving relatives of someone who has lost his way, but it is Nancy Beatty's(pic) performance with that Country matter-of-factness, that lingers long in the mind.
I loved it