Lars and the Real Girl is a 2007 American comedy-drama film written by Nancy Oliver and directed by Craig Gillespie.

The film stars Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner, and Patricia Clarkson.

Its plot follows Lars, a kind-hearted but socially awkward young man who develops a romantic yet nonsexual relationship with an anatomically correct sex doll, a RealDoll named Bianca.

Gus feels guilty for leaving as soon as he could support himself; Lars struggles with the loss of his mother during his birth and an irrational fear about the risk of death during childbirth.

One evening, Lars announces that he has a visitor whom he met online, a wheelchair-mobile missionary of Brazilian and Danish descent named Bianca.

Gus and Karin are startled to discover that Bianca is actually a lifelike doll, ordered from an adult website, whom Lars treats as a live human being.

When Margo reveals to Lars she has broken up with her boyfriend, he agrees to go bowling with her while Bianca attends a school board meeting; later they are joined by more friends.

"[17] Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle called the film "a gentle comedy, offbeat but never cute, never lewd and never going for shortcut laughs that might diminish character.

"[18] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times said, "American self-nostalgia is a dependable racket, and if the filmmakers had pushed into the realm of nervous truth, had given Lars and the town folk sustained shadows, not just cute tics and teary moments, it might have worked.

Instead the film is palatable audience bait of average accomplishment that superficially recalls the plain style of Alexander Payne, but without any of the lacerating edges or moral ambiguity.

"[20] Alissa Simon of Variety stated, "Craig Gillespie's sweetly off-kilter film plays like a Coen brothers riff on Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon tales, defying its lurid premise with a gentle comic drama grounded in reality ... what's fresh and charming is the way the characters surrounding the protagonist also grow as they help him through his crisis.