Movies this charming are rare. Rarer still are charmers like this that work completely, from start to finish. Simply put, one of my favorite films of the year (so far, anyway).

Writing: The beauty of this script is how it keys into the very nature of simplicity itself. It gives the cast an offbeat premise to work with, finding humor where it can, without undermining any of the character beats. Regardless of the odd nature of the situation, one of the obvious goals of the story is to remain grounded in reality. It also manages to avoid crossing the line of maudlin over dramatization that would probably be rather an easy mistake to make. If you’re looking for a movie full of startling revelations or unexpected twists and turns, look somewhere else. If you’re looking for a raunchy comedy about sex dolls, this is definitely not the right movie. Not even close (thankfully).

Production: Like the writing, the production is as down-to-earth as could possibly be. There are a couple nicely filmed scenes, including a very nice bit of camera work during a scene of Lars laying in a tree house in the woods singing. But even that scene is ordinary in nature. The design of Bianca, the doll, is also pretty straight forward. It’s lifelike enough without trying to hard. On the subject of Bianca, I think this movie features the most amusing production credit of the year - one for “Bianca Wrangler” and another for “Assistant Bianca Wrangler.” Sometimes it pays to be somebody like me, who sits through the end credits of movies, to see such bizarrely amusing credits.

Cast: I must admit that I never fail to be impressed by Ryan Gosling’s acting skills. He has to pull off a character that walks the fine line between abnormality and eccentricity. Plus, he has to pull off some subtle dramatic scenes. He does it all with ease. He seems to channel some of the more charming and odd characteristics of people like David Arquette in this role. When you see a performance like his in this movie then compare it to his previous film, the also-good Fracture, one definitely appreciates the acting skills to be able to pull off such fundamentally different characters. The always-reliable Emily Mortimer puts in a fine performance. Patricia Clarkson, who is one of those under appreciated character actors, works very well as the doctor/therapist. Paul Schneider pulls off a well grounded role of the brother. And Kelli Garner is gleefully charming as romantic interest Margo. For those interested in trivia, Kelli Garner played a very small role (of mean girl Kirstie) in the Buffy episode The Body (one of the finest episodes of television, ever).

Music: Composer David Torn taps into that ever-reliable realm of jaunty and quirky music that has served the low-key character drama genre so well for so long. While it’s nothing groundbreaking or overly fantastic, it works very well in the film, and is charming all by itself when listened to away from the film.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 29th, 2007 at 1:57 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.