Fifi Leigh
Tuesday, November 14, 2017
This morning, when I woke up around 9:30 am, I decided to watch another indie film as I ate my breakfast. I think it already started at 9 am. So, I missed about 30 minutes or so of the beginning. I recognized three familiar actors in this movie, Ryan Gosling, Patricia Clarkson, and Emily Mortimer. But I noticed an interesting addition to the cast, a plastic mannequin, which plays the “Real Girl” in this movie.
Lars Lindstrom, played by Ryan Gosling, is a mentally ill guy whose girlfriend is a plastic mannequin, Bianca. Throughout this movie, I thought it was odd and strange how this guy has a relationship with this mannequin, and people around him go along with him as normal, and they seem to see her as a real girl. But since they know he is mentally ill, and he have a psychiatrist, played by Patricia Clarkson, then it makes sense. He seems to see his psychiatrist on a regular basis, which indicates that he wants to get well. I am wondering if something happened in the beginning of the movie that I missed, such as a previous death in the family or if he had a previous girlfriend who died and he is trying to get over her death with this mannequin. I need to see the film over again from the beginning in order to analyze the missed scenes.
He seems to get a little bit better when he goes out with a girl from work because she just dumped her boyfriend. So, his mental illness could have stemmed from loneliness, and going out with others is a good sign. As he works on moving on, toward the end of the movie, and finally announces that this “real girl,” who actually goes by a name—Bianca, is dying. People act sad and mourn with him, his family call 911 to take this mannequin to ER in order to save the mannequin’s life. But, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and this mannequin dies. (I didn’t see any differences in her dead or alive. So, I am assuming she was in some vegetated state while she was a living mannequin). They actually perform an actual funeral to bury this mannequin, in which I thought it was odd to go that far. Lars’ brother mentions that their parents are dead. So, I am assuming their deaths could have led to Lars’ mental illness.
As I am watching this movie, I am wondering if this story has to do with transhumanism. Saudi Arabia has recently given citizenship to its female robots. When I first heard about that last week, I was thinking to myself that the next thing might be humans and robots getting married together to fight off loneliness. Well, this movie has a similar idea, in which this lonely mentally guy has a plastic mannequin for a girlfriend, other people in his community and his family accepted his relationship, and he did want to marry her, but he claims that she rejected him and said no, which was actually all in his head because it he is mentally ill. And, he eventually got tired of this relationship and killed her off, but he ended this relationship with an actual death diagnosis and funeral.
This is probably another one of those dark comedies. It is sad because it is about a mentally ill person struggling with their illness, but he is living an odd, laughable, and ridiculous situation, in which if he wasn’t mentally ill then the movie would actually be funny.
I added the movie trailer for this 2007 movie, and this trailer seems to explain the beginning scenes that I missed, in which his family and friends are asked to go along with his delusional ideas with a mannequin in order to help him. She looks like one of those blowup sex dolls on the internet.
