3.02.2009

WWJD

This past weekend I watched Lars and The Real Girl, which I had been curious about since I saw a trailer for it about a year ago. 
The punch line of the story is that Lars treats a life-size, realistic, sex doll like a real person and his girlfriend.  Her name is Bianca.  The family doctor, who has training in psychiatry, advises Lars's (Lars' ?) brother and sister-in-law to play along. They agree, the brother reluctantly, and visit his church to make the priest and leadership aware of the situation and ask for their help.  The leadership, made up of several old people, have a problem with a sex doll and begin to refuse.  One spunky lady tries to convince them that it's no different from pretending that one guy's wife wasn't a kleptomaniac etc. and then the priest, wisely speaks up and asks "What would Jesus do?"
Lars and Bianca (the sex doll) are in church on Sunday. 

The rest of the movie is about the whole town playing along with Lars as he works out his issues with being an active member of a community and family. 

The whole thing could have easily been a farce, a harsh, unkind treatment of people with delusions.  Instead, we see a family, a church, a community, a person come together with compassion.  Each person faces some of their own struggles when confronted with Lars and Bianca, and each person manages to come out on the other side a better version of themselves. 

I highly recommend it.

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