Lars and the Real Girl is a quirky little dramedy that was written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie. It stars Ryan Gossling as Lars, who is a bit of a socially awkward young man. In order to deal with the troubles of his past, he orders a love doll named Bianca off of the internet, and begins to treat her as if she were his real life girlfriend.
Initially his older brother Gus (Paul Schneider), and his brother’s wife Karin (Emily Mortimer), as well as the rest of the locals in town, all have a hard time accepting Bianca and dealing with the situation. But after they begin to see that it’s actually helping Lars deal with his deep-seeded issues, they fall in line and treat her as one of their own. Eventually this helps Lars come to terms with his demons, and lay his past to rest.
Lars and the Real Girl makes it’s way onto your TV set via a 1080p/AVC encode that doesn’t do the film nearly enough justice. While the film certainly looks better on blu-ray than it did on DVD, it’s not nearly as clean or polished as it could, and should have been.
There are definite notes of edge enhancement, which may not bother the casual viewer, but will certainly be noticed by a videophile. Luckily this release retains much of the original film grain, and lacks over use of digital noise reduction.
Seeing that this was a low-budget film, I doubt that MGM is going to go back for another pass at this film. And while I don’t think the issues are enough to keep one from enjoying the movie, it’s certainly worth knowing before you spend too much money on a release that you might not be completely thrilled with PQ wise.
Unfortunately, being that it’s a dialogue heavy film, don’t expect the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track to have much sound coming from the rears to give you any ambiance, or the bass to give you any rumble. Other than the score and a single party scene in the film, the sound is very limited, practically to just the front speakers.
Though this sounds bad, it’s not. There’s no real need for the back speakers, or bass in this film. Sure it would have been nice (and received a 5) if there was a bit more back-end, but really I don’t think the release needs it, as it’s not part of the original release. I had a bit of a hard time not giving this more than a 4 since it’s true to the source material, but ultimately it just didn’t deserve a 5.
Unfortunately this is another film that is very slim on the special features. I won’t go into complaining mode about how annoying it is not to take advantage of the capacity of a blu-ray disc, and stuff it to the gills with any sort of deleted materials you can. So with that, I give you the list of special features:
- Deleted Scene – Bathtub
- The Real Story of Lars and the Real Girl
- A Real Leading Lady
- Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 2:24)
There are so many good things I want to say about this release, as a film in and of itself, however I promised I would just keep it completely subjective. With that sly little recommendation in place, I’ll move onto the bottom line.
The film is, as I said above, a good to great release considering the source material and the fact that it was low budget. I honestly don’t think that MGM is going to go back and clean this film up any further, so I think this is as good as you’re going to get. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I seriously doubt it.
As far as the AQ portion, you’ll ultimately have to take my opinion and apply it to yours. As I said, I wanted to score it more than a 4 because it really is true to the theatrical release, however it doesn’t really do a surround sound system any justice.
With that said, I’d definitely recommend the film if you’re a fan, if not, I’d still recommend it. It’s certainly worth watching.
