Lars and the Real Girl (and Calvin and Hobbes)

Last night I went to see a movie, Lars and the Real Girl. When I tell you the premise of the movie, you might guess that it’s a set-up for a lot of crude humour. You’d be wrong.

In one key respect, the movie is akin to the great comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes.

Lars (Ryan Gosling) lives on the same property as his brother and sister-in-law. They have turned the garage into a kind of granny flat for him.

It isn’t that they don’t care about him. It’s Lars himself who prefers the arrangement. Lars is functional enough to hold down a job, but otherwise he is steadily retreating into himself. He is well on his way to becoming a recluse.

Things take a very strange twist when Lars buys himself a “love doll”. Not the inflatable kind, but the latest scientific model:  made from very life-like materials, with limbs that can be positioned just where you want them.

Lars introduces “Bianca” to his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and sister-in-law Karin (Emily Mortimer). He seems to think that he can pull it off — his family won’t notice that Bianca is a lifeless, latex sex toy.

The truth is rather darker than that. Lars is genuinely delusional:  he believes that Bianca is a real person. He doesn’t regard her as a sex toy. He doesn’t use her for that purpose, even though he considers her his girlfriend.

Karin has been concerned about Lars for some time. Thrown off balance by the latest development, she plays along with Lars in lieu of a better strategy. And then she improvises (I am paraphrasing the dialogue from memory):

Lars, your brother is worried about Bianca. She doesn’t look so well. Maybe Bianca is just having trouble adjusting to the climate, but we think she should see a doctor. Just to be on the safe side.

Gus quickly picks up on Karin’s cue.

That’s right, Lars. We should all go to the doctor together. Tomorrow.

Lars hesitates. A shadow of doubt crosses his face. In the audience, we wonder:  does he realize it’s a trick? But Karin’s ad-lib is a good one. It makes sense within Lars’s frame of reference. And so he agrees that Bianca should see a doctor.

The movie is stimulating because the dialogue constantly operates at two levels. There is Lars’s reality, in which Bianca is a living person who might have need of a doctor. And there is everyone else’s reality, in which Bianca is a sex toy and Lars is the one who needs help.

This is where the movie reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes:  in its skillful handling of a premise where reality functions at two levels at once.

Some part of Lars must be aware that Bianca is merely a doll. In one scene, Karin and Lars have an argument. Karin is careful not to contradict Lars’s frame of reference, or he would (almost literally) cease to hear her. And yet, Karin says things that only really make sense if Lars understands that Bianca is merely a doll.

This movie could have gone terribly wrong. It is a high-risk project that requires everyone to get things pitch-perfect. Given the subject matter, any misstep would be cringe-inducing.

The director assumes intelligence on the part of the audience. Time and again, small points of interest are communicated solely through body language. Gosling, in particular, is masterful at conveying information just by a rigid posture, or an unnatural stillness of his face. When his character is agitated, Gosling’s physical mannerisms are utterly perfect. (I should know:  I worked with emotionally troubled adults for several years.)

The movie has moments that are very funny, but we are never laughing at Lars. (OK, we may laugh at him a little, but never in a mean-spirited way.)

Other scenes are poignant. The movie works well as a drama. What is the function of this delusion in the development of Lars’s psyche? What has triggered it? How will it be resolved?

The immediate effect of the delusion is surprisingly positive. Lars begins to come out of himself and engage the world. He even accepts an invitation to a party with his colleagues from work.

But of course, it can’t be healthy in the long run. Something has to give.

The only flaw in this movie is that, inevitably, it stretches credulity to the breaking point. For example, the whole community rallies in support of Lars. In the real world, some people would be cruel. Even Lars’s family might not be able to deal with the situation (although the movie handles the family’s reaction very well. Karin is completely supportive; Gus is ambivalent).

But let’s set that quibble aside. Movies require that we suspend our disbelief, and allow the story to carry us where it will. At one point, my friend snorted, “As if!”, but she enjoyed the movie just as much as I did.

In sum:  an interesting premise; humour; pathos; first-rate acting; dialogue that works at multiple levels. Highly recommended.

How the Grinch stole Christmas: a retelling of an Old Testament tale?

I watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas this week, and suddenly it occurred to me:  it is the story of Job, redux.

The residents of Whoville correspond to Job. They are blameless, even pure in heart. On Christmas morning, they gather in the village square to hold hands and sing, as an expression of gratitude. (To whom, Dr. Seuss doesn’t presume to tell us.)

The Grinch corresponds to Satan, of course.

And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?

Then Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face. (Job 1:8-11, English Standard Version)

This is precisely the Grinch’s analysis. Those obnoxious villagers only celebrate Christmas because of all the presents they get. If I steal their goodies, they’ll cease to be grateful! But things didn’t turn out as the Grinch smugly assumed.

Then [Job's] wife said to him, Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die.

But he said to her … Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:9-10, ESV)

Of course, Job’s journey is more turbulent than the prologue of the book implies. He is plunged into despair; he is overwhelmed with (justified) self-pity; he questions God’s justice. But in the end, Job stops short of cursing God, just as the prologue foreshadows.

Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small
Were singing without any presents at all!
He hadn’t stopped Christmas from coming — it came
Somehow or other, it came just the same.

At the end of the Old Testament tale, God restores the fortunes of Job (42:10). Likewise, Cindy Lou Who and all the other villagers receive back what the Grinch had stolen from them. But that point is not at the heart of either story.

The deeper message is, We aren’t grateful because of all our possessions; we’re grateful for life itself, for loving relationships, for truth, beauty, “spirit” —. These are more valuable than the things money can buy.

In the words of Jesus, “Life does not consist in the abundance of one’s possessions” (Luke 12:15 — one of my favourite New Testament texts).

Christmas day is in our grasp
So long as we have hands to clasp …
Christmas day will always be
Just so long as we have we

It came without ribbons; it came without tags
It came without packages, boxes or bags! …

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store
Maybe Christmas — perhaps — means a little bit more.

Blogroll update

Just a quick note to point out that I’ve updated my blogroll. The goal of my blogroll is to promote dialogue. The way to get onto it is to leave (edifying) comments and enrich the experience for all of us.

No one appreciates a self-indulgent blogger. Thanks for keeping me from navel-gazing!

Where there are kids, there are pets

We have lots of kids at our house. My kids, Mary P.’s kids, and the daycare kids who provide the inspiration for Mary P.’s blog.

Where there are lots of kids, it’s likely there are lots of pets. Our household is home to two cats, a bird, a hamster, and a guinea pig. Some of you have seen this photo of our guinea pig before:

Sparky bears a striking resemblance to a certain Looney Tunes character. Separated at birth? You be the judge!

This is the elder statesman among the livestock. Patches was always eccentric, and it’s only getting worse as he ages:

He won’t go near his water dish unless you’ve just filled it. He prefers to drink only living water, even if it comes from the faucet of the bathroom sink. (Living water = running water; the allusion is for the biblically literate among you.)

A few months ago, we introduced a kitten to the household. Moses has too much testesterone and not enough impulse control. When he gets restless, he fixates on capturing the budgie. He has knocked its cage down several times. So far, the budgie has not died of a heart attack, but it was a near thing.

The hamster looks like easy prey, too … unless you put her in a hamster ball. Nothing in a cat’s evolutionary history has prepared it for this scenario:

A hamster ball is the pet-world equivalent of an armoured vehicle. When the hamster rolled directly toward the cat, the cat’s only impulse was to get out of the way.

Eventually Moses took a swipe at it, but half-heartedly.

Finally — if you haven’t seen too much of our pets by now — here’s some footage of our hamster stuffing her cheek pouches then scurrying off to her burrow. A little snippet of domestic life! Enjoy!

Tarted-up teens

Babel (the movie, reviewed in my previous post) illustrates a social issue that interests me: the sexualization of teenaged girls who have not yet mastered their sexual persona.

One of Babel’s four plot lines follows a Japanese teenager dealing with a double crisis. Chieko (played by Rinko Kikuchi) is trying to come to terms with the death of her mother. The circumstances in which her mother died are not made clear until the climax of the movie. And Chieko’s emotional struggles are intensified by the fact that she is deaf. She feels like a freak at a time in her life when she is acutely interested in boys.

Chieko’s age is never revealed. She might be eighteen; presumably the actor is, since she is shown in full frontal nudity. The character seems younger than that, but perhaps her social development has been delayed because of her deafness.

Physically, Chieko is an adult, I suppose. (To me, eighteen-year-olds look only half-formed.) Emotionally, she is a needy child. She desperately wants to lose her virginity. She has something to prove, some need to fulfill — not really a need for sex.

Some of the scenes reminded me of the tarted-up schoolgirls depicted in animé. Chieko goes out in public wearing a mini skirt — without panties, as she makes clear to a friend.

She tries to seduce various men; some are her own age, others are as old as her father. But “seduce” is the wrong word. Her technique is too clumsy to be seductive; as unsubtle as the plot of a porno movie. She has the necessary body parts, but she has not yet mastered her sexual persona.

Chieko represents some of the adolescent girls I see in my part of the world: all cleavage and half-exposed behinds, with no real comprehension of what they’re playing at.

At this point I must interject a couple of clarifications.

First, I’m aware that there are exceptions to the sort of adolescents I’m describing. I have met precocious girls, not yet twelve years old, who exude sexuality, and who appear to be in complete control of their sexual persona. Perhaps they are sexually active; perhaps it’s just a persona. Those aren’t the girls I’m discussing here.

Second, this isn’t a rant against premarital sex. I’m not arguing that boys drive the sexual agenda and girls require our protection. In the movie, Chieko is on the prowl. I would be OK with that, if Chieko weren’t so messed up in other respects — that’s the pivotal consideration.

My critique, fwiw, is directed at society and the way we socialize our children. As Chieko mimicks animé, so North American girls ape Br*tney Sp**rs — or the current pre-fab adolescent pop tart, whoever that is.

A couple of summers ago, I noticed a young teenager wearing a very short skirt. She was crossing a street, downtown. It was a windy day. She was trying to hold the skirt down as she walked, and the expression on her face showed that she was very uncomfortable with her situation.

Who dressed her that way? She dressed herself, of course, but with a head full of MTV images. I remembered her as I watched Babel. Like Chieko, she wasn’t ready to wield such a potent sexuality.

Western society rushes children headlong toward sexual maturity. Animé is normative; every schoolgirl aspires to look like her name is written on a bathroom wall somewhere. Harmful consequences will surely follow, for some of them.

Playing cat and mouse with Blogger

I’ve been blogging for eighteen months now, and I just switched from Blogger to WordPress. I must say, I was reasonably impressed by Blogger. It has glitches, to be sure. But it’s a free service, so I never felt I had much cause for complaint.

But I felt like a change, and I admit I’m suitably impressed by my new blog home. I particularly appreciate:

• WordPress’s preview function (unlike Blogger, WordPress shows you exactly what the post will look like after publication);
• how easy it is to categorize my posts;
• the page-by-page stats;
• recent comments are displayed on the index page; and
• I was able to customize my blog header by adding a photo, without having the fiddly labour of using CSS to modify the template.

I took advantage of the “import” feature to instantly publish all of my Simply Put posts here on Outside the Box. It was a great time saver … but it also set in motion a fascinating “cat and mouse” exercise.

Most of my Simply Put photos were stored on Blogger’s server. Blogger immediately blocked access to them from my WordPress blog. The html is there; the photos even show in preview mode; but they do not appear on the blog. Blogger cleverly discerned that I was stealing their bandwidth for a WordPress blog, and they put a stop to it.

So I came up with a clever compromise. I uploaded a smaller version of the photos to WordPress, but I replaced only the “src” url. If you clicked on the photos, the full size version would pop up … but you were accessing a page on Blogger.

That worked for approximately forty-eight hours. Now you get a message: Forbidden / Error 403.

Curses, foiled again!

I’m painstakingly working my way back through all my old posts, uploading any photos to WordPress. What a nuisance! But I concede, Blogger is in the right.