I have to see that movie!

Looks good. If this flick does well, maybe we'll get a sequel where he progresses to a robot.

why do you do this to my so early in the morning?! now i will have ryan gosling on the brain for the rest of the day. no work will get done.

thank you.

I saw a French film not to long ago called "Monique" which was about a married couple in an unsatisfying relationship which led to the woman moving in with her art teacher and the man accidentally buying a real doll when drunk one night. It was funny in a French way and I was surprised that I enjoyed it.

That's one I'll have to put on my "to see" list (although I make it to the theater so infrequently these days it might turn into a "to rent" list sooner than I think).

Randomly, I dated a guy who was friends with Ryan Gosling. Or so he said. He never introduced me, though, the brat :P

I heard about this movie a while ago, and after that trailer, I'm excited to see it. Then again I'd watch Ryan Gosling in any movie. Hell, I watched him as "Young Hercules", so, really, what does that say about me?

Law Fairy--that's a shame...could've met him and had him fall madly in love with you. A girl can dream, right? ;)

Elle, my thoughts EXACTLY :D

This sort of thing lends itself well to jokes about women being more desireable when they don't talk. Loved that. Ha ha.

The film looks nice, but as many hollywood films it will make a joke out of a problem. I'm sure that at the end the guy dates the bowling girl and puts the doll back to the box.

There are many films where gay people lived their lives, they were loved by their friends, but the whole community managed to bring him/her back to "normal". At the time they were seen as strange people.

What is the difference between getting a doll and getting a dog just because you are affraid of social contact? being gay, affraid of the dark, not liking social interaction... there are different ways we might be and we are born that way. These people are born like that, or made a choice, or have a psychological problem, but whatever it is, we should respect them, they are not harming anybody. I think that the film treats them as anomalies in our society.

These people are born like that, or made a choice, or have a psychological problem, but whatever it is, we should respect them, they are not harming anybody. I think that the film treats them as anomalies in our society.

If a woman stays with abusive husband, should we help her or respect her choice and stay away from her problems? Is this her real choice, or she is just desperate? Different situations - different solutions. If someone lives with a doll, is he/she just different, or is it indirect cry for help?

Looks interesting--though the "humor" of "wish I had a woman who couldn't talk" is lost on me.

Also, there is a relatively series of words/images in the preview where Gosling's character asks his brother, "When did you know you were a man?" and then they cut to his brother snuggling with his pregnant wife, which is at least silly and at most a bit disturbing, on the 'what makes a man' front.

"What is the difference between getting a doll and getting a dog just because you are affraid of social contact?"--electranieda

I think that there *are* differences--for one, dogs have their own personalities, whereas dolls only 'have personalities' that are projected onto them (this is part of the reason that real dolls freak out my feminist sensibilities, in addition to other of my sensibilities, because of problems between actual human beings where men tend to project personalities onto women). Part of being social is interacting with those who have their own interests, have moods, have a will of their own and the like. Presumably, dolls don't have these qualities, though they may have them projected onto them. Dogs do have these qualities.

Which is not to say that dolls don't serve some of the same functions as having a dog might, as far as fighting loneliness and the like--but having some things in common doesn't make them the same, and the differences may be very important.

Keep in mind, Ryan Gosling starred in The Believer, as well. He has a thing for playing very messed up men.

From what I've gathered from the trailer and IMD, it seems more that his character is mentally ill and is having delusions of the woman/doll telling him about her life and such. Apparently she's a Christian, so they don't sleep in the same bed. It also seems to highlight the struggle for the community and family (brother and sister-in-law) to "accept" Lars' lifestyle while still trying to help him learn to have a relationship with a real woman. I think it looks sort of sweet.

Manifestadestiny,
You definitely do have a point that not all so-called "problems" a person has have to be fixed, but it seems more than a little insulting to compare homosexuality to creating an imaginary girlfriend out of a doll, don't you think?

Interesting find :)

It's an interesting thing for me to see this issue brought up in an intelligent matter as one of the things I specialize in is working with extremely shy individuals... Which, if they don't solve their shyness, some of them spillover into phemenona such as this one.

I got a lil comment on this:

"Fucking a sex toy is fine by me. Calling it your girlfriend and wishing that real women were like dolls (in that they can't move, talk, etc) is not."

I agree on the the part on real women. Wanting to change and *control* and impose notions about what real women should be like is arrogant... Especially saying they should be like an an actual in-animate object!

I don't agree with the reverse though... "Calling it your girlfriend"...

It's the only way they can find to cope with not being able to have a girlfriend. The only other option for most of them is suicide, as unfortunately the vast majority of them don't get any help whatsover...

These are some incredibly unfortunate men who have been born with a severe social disability. All they ever wanted was to feel love, to feel and know what it's like to be in a relationship. The vast majority of them receive absolutely no help for their crippling condition, in fact, they get further punished for it by social rejection. They get punished not for what they do, but for what they *don't do*, which is socialize.

There's only 3 ways extremely shy individuals get out of their rut 1) acting out in strange ways like this 2) getting frustrated, snapping and turning to the opposite, becoming obnoxious and arrogant men/women 3) getting help, which is the rarest as there's very little organizations in the world helping out with this as of now. Most people not only not help them, but reject them and judge them.

If I could make a metaphor. I could say that these men are like say a starving orphan child in india...

...and judging them for trying to cope by calling a doll a girlfriend... is like... calling that starving child a "control-freak" for calling their voluntary nurse... "mommy".