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Author:
Grace McKeaney
Writer, producer of plays, television, cable movies etc. and receipient of all sorts of acknowledgements, but most significantly, she is the mother of two beloved daughters, Kate Deirdre and Hannah Guinevere.
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Grace McKeaney is a graduate of Northwestern University and attended the Yale School Of Drama for an MFA in playwriting. A recipient of Le Conte Du Nuoy Prize for contribution to the American Theater, she is the author of ten nationally produced plays and has developed new works at both the Eugene O’Neill Conference and the Sundance Institute. A veteran of television, she has written and produced shows (for all networks and many cables) as varied as “Roseanne”, “St Elsewhere”, “The Client”, “The Hoop Life” and “The Education Of Max Bickford”. She has written movies for Lifetime, Wonderful World Of Disney and Hallmark Hall Of Fame, including “Grace and Glorie” with Gena Rowlands and Diane Lane, (winner of a Christopher Award). Grace has taught creative writing at all levels, initiating the WORD PLAY program at Baltimore’s Center Stage which took professional writers into Maryland public schools. She is the author of two (as yet) unproduced screenplays. Most significant, she is the mother of two beloved daughters, Kate Deirdre and Hannah Guinevere.
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LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
Fortunate movie years have their Little Miss Sunshine. 2007 is suddenly looking up.
In Lars and The Real Girl an endearing snow-bound midwestern community unites to support the whimsical delusion of a cherished member in his unconscious quest, at 27, to become a man.
Ryan Gosling plays Lars, of the private smile and the ten mile stare. Beefed up against frosty weather by three layers of clothes, this is armor against people, as well. Lars hates to be touched. A hug from his good-hearted, pregnant sister-in-law (played adorably by Emily Mortimer) sears him like freezer burn.
Worse are the friendly nudges of interest from sweet new co-worker and fellow office drone, Margo (played with touching intelligence by Kelli Garner). Attraction to Margo is fraught with untold complications for Lars. How can a man who never felt safe and loved as a child become man enough for a satisfying relationship with a real girl?
Lars doesn’t exactly know what he’s after when he orders a life size sex toy from an internet web site but it turns out to be the best purchase his psyche ever made.
Pushed into an emotional corner by his sister-in-law’s impending pregnancy, he’s tense, frightened, and in need of true cathartic break-through. His own mother (whose comfort he never knew) died at his birth. A remote, grieving father and escapist older brother did not create for the growing Lars the nurturing or security which might have ushered in a healthy manhood.
When “Bianca”, the Trademarked “Real Girl” arrives -- 126 lbs. of life-like, anatomically correct latex -- Lars enters a delusion which isn’t as crazy as it looks on first blush. In a nod to Mary Chase’s invisible pookah “Harvey”, Bianca's sudden appearance makes Lar's life infinitely colorful and worth living.
Where he was withdrawn and fearful with others, he becomes happily out-going where Bianca's welfare is concerned. Basking in, strengthened by Bianca's zen-like acceptance, Lars experiences love from a woman which hasn't been scarred by guilt or psychic pain. Unconsciously he seems to know Bianca's chaste, unquestioning love is what has been missing all his life. Providence, the internet and Lars' desire to heal have afforded a safe helpmate he can practice caring with, moving tentatively but progressively into a bigger, more expansive life.
To help Lars, this Capraesque town, encouraged by Patricia Clarkson, the best movie shrink ever to hang up a shingle, elects to embrace “Bianca” as a way of embracing Lars until he is ready to accept their embrace directly.
Soon townsfolk have Bianca volunteering at the hospital and elected to the school board. And with each new acceptance of his girl, Lars experiences the purifying tears of catharsis. The benign neglect which has chiseled out his formerly lonely existence gives way through a village's unconditional love, to the possibility he can be whole.
Written with startling simplicity and a wealth of emotional intelligence, the screenplay by Nancy Oliver is an accomplished blend of humor and pathos. Even Gus, Lar’s doubting older brother, played with sly wit and tough/tender masculinity by Paul Schneider, comes to see the wisdom of Bianca as the means for Lars to find a path into greater community with others.
Like the Velveteen Rabbit, Bianca becomes a “real girl” by being loved by everyone real. And Lars becomes a flesh and blood man through the love and acceptance of this village which comes to a late realization they perhaps did not raise the motherless child properly the first time around. When Bianca is "ailing" and three knitting matrons sit a kind of Midwestern Shiva with Lars over ambrosia and homemade tuna casserole, their embrace is blessedly big enough to hold us all.
To a very great extent, Lars has done the most toward his own healing, first by ordering “Bianca” then by ending their limited relationship when he is ready for the true “real girl” of the story, Margo, to touch his now able heart.
If any of this sounds pat or formulaic, this unique, funny, PG13 screenplay and its layered, deft direction by Craig Gillespie is anything but. Produced beautifully by Sidney Kimmel Entertainment (with Peter Berg, Sarah Aubrey and John Cameron among insightful others), graced with authentic casting and a marvelous characterization by Ryan Gosling rivaling Jimmy Stewart’s finest on-screen moments, LARS AND THE REAL GIRL is, simply and deeply, the real thing.
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