"Lars and the Real Girl" | His girlfriend is a doll — for real

Prepared to be shocked by "Lars and the Real Girl," simply because it isn't shocking at all. Instead, Craig Gillespie's comedy, written by Nancy Oliver (TV's "Six Feet Under"), is almost impossibly sweet, a tale of love and kindness that's funny without being snarky. And when's the last time you said that about a movie that depicts a relationship between a man and a life-size doll?

Lars (Ryan Gosling, complete with a sad little mustache) is an emotionally shutdown young man in a small Midwestern town, living in the garage apartment behind the house formerly owned by his late parents.

His brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and pregnant sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer), who live in the house, perpetually worry about his isolation and loneliness, so they're thrilled when he announces that a woman friend is coming to visit. She is Bianca — tall, slender, vaguely resembling a waxworks Angelina Jolie and entirely inanimate. Gus and Karin, being polite Midwesterners, greet her with a stunned courtesy, and Karin even makes uncomfortable small talk with her when the two of them are left alone. It seems, to this loving sister-in-law, the right thing to do.

Bring on the "Knocked Up"- and "Superbad"-style dirty jokes, right? Wrong. What unfolds is the town's surprised but warmhearted acceptance of Bianca: Lars is loved, and so she will be loved, too, however odd the situation may seem. "These things happen," says a sensible neighbor. "Lars is a good boy." When Gus and Karin take Lars to a doctor (Patricia Clarkson, wonderfully dry), no particular alarm bells are rung. "He appears to have a delusion," says the doctor, advising them all to go along with it.

And so Bianca becomes part of the fabric of the town, and starts having her own life — a job, shopping trips, a makeover at the local salon. She goes with Lars to church and to parties, where the two of them slow dance (he holds, he sways). You keep waiting for the movie to turn smart-ass and cynical, and to Gillespie and Oliver's great credit, it never does.

There's a gentleness to the performances that's irresistible: Gosling, who seems to almost imperceptibly relax when he's near Bianca, makes us understand in few words the town's affection for Lars. And Mortimer, with her sad little chirp of a voice, is sweetness personified as Karin, whose love for her brother-in-law overcomes all doubt. Asked about potential trouble between Lars and Bianca, Karin shakes her head decisively. "They never fight," she says, having long ago banished any ideas that Bianca is anything less than real.

And we've gone there with her, completely won over. Movies can make what's not real seem real, and "Lars and the Real Girl" takes that magic a step further — not through trickery or technology, but through the love in a young man's eyes.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com