Really sweet. It doesn't poke fun or take the low road at any point despite a premise in which the risk of all of the above, whether advertent or otherwise, is ever-present - who'd have thought that a film about a sex doll could be so gentle, kind and hopeful?
A lot of that comes from Ryan Gosling's performance - above all else, it was critical that he be (a) believable and (b) sympathetic, and he comes through on both counts, sweet, bemused, seemingly torn between hopefulness and resignation - and a fair bit's owed to the warm turns put in by Emily Mortimer (surely one of the most sheerly delightful actors going around at the moment - and definitely a good candidate for 'British female actor' crush-dom) and Paul Schneider (whose character was a kind of 'me' surrogate in more than one way at various points), but the main thing about it is really the air of the whole, which kinda reminded me of Me and You and Everyone We Know. I'm not sure how to describe it - kind of removed but close at the same time, like hot breath on the other side of a pane of glass, or something.
For some reason, the 'sensitive outsider boy is saved by quirky beautiful girl dropping from the sky' (see Garden State, etc, etc) thing didn't irritate me at all in this one - maybe because one can't help but feel that he really earns his happy ending, and maybe because that particular narrative isn't the primary focus of the film (though it's strongly implied throughout). Plus, it has a cool soundtrack including good use of "Naive Melody".
(w/ SL)
