Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2007

The Contenders:

Juno (winner)
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
The Savages

I'm a Barbie Girl

Film: Lars and the Real Girl
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

I’ve sat here with a Word document open for a few minutes wondering exactly how to approach Lars and the Real Girl. Anyone who hasn’t seen it and knows the story will understand that, as will most of the people who have seen it. It’s alternately a truly bizarre drama and a poignant comedy at times, despite the elevator pitch. Everything about Lars and the Real Girl screams that it will be trash comedy that manages not even a smile in all but the thickest cretins in the audience, and yet it’s actually an effective, even heartfelt film.

That elevator pitch makes this unlikely. Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) is an introverted loner living in the garage behind the house of his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Gus’s pregnant wife Karin (Emily Mortimer). Virtually all interactions with Lars are incredibly frustrating. He doesn’t like to be talked to or touched and always appears (and is) uncomfortable in all personal situations. This changes when Lars sends away for life-sized, presumably anatomically correct sex doll that he names Bianca (presumably played by herself).