“Lars and the Real Girl,” 29 November 2008 (2007), DVD. We both really enjoyed this offbeat indie film starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, and Patricia Clarkson. Lars (Gosling) is a socially isolated young man in Minnesota who lives in his brother and pregnant sister-in-law’s garage. Folks try to reach out to him and encourage him to connect with people, but he stays isolated. He falls in love with a plastic sex doll with which/whom he has this ‘amazing’ relationship. The town, his workmates, his church community and others are, of course, amused, shocked and perplexed at his delusion and have to figure out what’s going on. With the help of the town MD (Clarkson), he begins to look at his own life (but always in code about ‘Bianca’). The story is excellent and the acting and direction are quite wonderful. This is a very loving, gentle, humane film that is very unusual for American film makers to do. See this one, including the special features on DVD!