Cynical Cinema

It’s pretty clear that Billy Bob Thornton has two careers. One where he takes roles in serious movies and does a decent-to-good job in movies that are generally decent-to-good. (The Astronaut Farmer, Friday Night Lights.) The other career is the one where he takes roles in comedies, and plays really obnoxious, angry, foul-mouthed, possibly drunk characters, with mixed results. These movies can be fantastically funny, like Bad Santa. Or they can be painful, juvenile and idiotic, like School For Scoundrels or Mr. Woodcock (which is being released by Alliance Atlantis this coming Tuesday).

Seann William Scott also has two careers. One, where he plays a sex-crazed, party-animal frat-boy type, in teen comedies that are decent at best. Like American Pie or Road Trip. The second career is the one where he plays smarmy and wimpy characters in more grown-up comedies that are invariable lousy. Like The Dukes of Hazzard, Bulletproof Monk, Evolution, Dude Where’s My Car, and Mr. Woodcock.

This movie is definitely painful. And lousy. And dreadful. And insipid. And ridiculous. And awful. The reason I have found so many synonyms for horrible is that this is the level on which the movie works. You see, Seann William Scott plays a character that was terrorized as a child by his gym teacher, Mr. Woodcock (Billy Bob Thornton, of course). He grows up to become a self-help guru, and returns to his home town where he discovers that Mr. Woodcock is now dating his mom. And of course, having sex with her, which is apparently the REAL problem. The real problem with the movie is that they think comedy is having people yell synonyms for sex with his mom. Porked! Plowed! Such and such…this is not funny. It is irritating. And so is this movie.

One of the first scenes in this movie is the only funny one. Where Seann William Scott does a book signing for his new self-help book. It’s funny because the whole self-help session is idiotic and painfully stupid. The tree of tranquility, the warm pool of security…all that kind of crap. It’s reasonably funny. Then the movie takes this abrupt U-turn into idiocy. When Scott finds out that Thornton is nailing, banging, having his way with his mom, he goes out of his way to ruin their relationship. Breaking into his house, (which of course leads to him hiding under the bed while he listens to them have sex), trying to set him up, (which of course turns out badly), and a myriad of other things. Staggeringly simple, terribly written, and horribly acted, and I wonder what happens at the end? Does he learn that Mr. Woodcock is actually a very nice person, and accept his mom’s new relationship?

Of course he does. But…where does he come to this realization? Well, the only place that could make this movie any worse. Live, on the Tyra Banks show! The only show on all of television that I hate more than I hate this movie. And I REALLY hate this movie.

Thanks to Lars and the Real Girl, I have spent an hour on realdoll.com doing research.  These are basically blow-up dolls, just really high-end.  So you order them for sex, and they get delivered to your house (delivery is at least 500 bucks itself), at the cost of $7,500.00 or more.  The website proclaims that they are perfectly realistic in every way (except that they are unable to speak, react, or do…anything).  And I think I found Lars’ girl.  She’s face #6, with the red lipstick and hairstyle #0731, and…OK.  I have spent WAY too much time on this site.  Anyway, it all seems bizarre to me.  My dad always said that a car may cost $15,000.00, but fifteen grand buys a LOT of taxi rides.  This was his way of making me really think about buying a car.  I apply the same logic here.  If you really need sex that badly, ten grand can buy a LOT of hookers.  And you can get a new one every day.  (Try to skip Vanier though.)  I have discovered, in the past, that I can get bored with the same girl day in and day out, after about two weeks.  Now, imagine that she doesn’t talk to you or move around at all.  How fast would you get bored of that?  And there goes ten grand…

Anyway, Lars and the Real Girl is about Lars (Ryan Gosling), who is an eccentric weirdo in a small town who can’t form regular relationships with other people.  He lives in the garage of his brother’s house, and barely talks to anyone on his way to and from work.  His brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Gus’ wife (Emily Mortimer) are constantly trying to break Lars out of his shell, but it isn’t working.  Lars ignores the one girl at his office who has a crush on him, because he is incapable of touching people.  Then, all of a sudden, he shows up with this “real girl”.  Who is hilariously dressed in the skankiest outfit imaginable.  He calls her Bianca and introduces her to his brother and sister-in-law as his new girlfriend.  He has constructed an elaborate back story for Bianca.  She is a missionary, and is arriving from Spain, and her luggage and wheelchair got stolen at the airport, so can she borrow some of your clothes?  His family plays along, even when he asks if Bianca can sleep in their guest bedroom (she is a Christian, and believes strongly that they should not sleep together before marriage).  And this is what makes the whole thing work.  This is obviously a sex doll, and if he bought it for sex, that would just be creepy.  But he does not want it for sex at all, and it ends up being kind of sweet.  He wants people to see him as a normal human being, with a girlfriend in a wheelchair, but he is also deluded enough to believe that she IS real.  And that others will believe this as well.

He talks to her as though she is answering him.  Like Casey used to do to Finnegan on Mr. Dressup.  And then he tells people what she says.  She is painfully shy, you see, and she will only talk to him.  Before long, the entire town is buying into this fantasy, and they keep taking Bianca away for sewing circles and PTA meetings and they get her to read to kids at the local elementary school.  He certainly seems happier when Bianca is around, like Jimmy Stewart with his giant rabbit in Harvey, and like Harvey, Bianca is a harmless delusion for an otherwise charming and likeable guy.  There are some elements of the plot that are odd - like the girl at Lars’ office with a crush on him.  Sure, she’s kind of weird, but is she weird enough to be into THIS guy?  And how healthy is it, really, that everyone goes along with his bizarre delusion, all the way to it’s conclusion, which I won’t reveal here.

 This movie is too long.  Gosling is terrific, but he undergoes character development only toward the end, and the middle of the movie is an extended set-piece of people giving strange looks to him and Bianca.  Some of this is funny, in fact a lot of it is, but it drags.  This movie could have been done in a little over an hour, and there is an extra half hour that could have been left on the cutting room floor.  But it is a sweet, charming little movie about a sweet, charming little man.  It’s genuinely funny and has a big heart.  It’s worth the extra half hour.