Bayside resident Mark Metcalf is an actor who has worked in movies, TV and on the stage. He is best known for his work in "Animal House," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Seinfeld."

In addition to his work on screen, Metcalf is involved with the Milwaukee International Film Festival, First Stage Children's Theater and a number of other projects.

He also finds time to write about movies for OnMilwaukee.com. This week, Metcalf weighs in on "Lars and the Real Girl" and "The Big Lebowski."

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL (2007)

I think most of the really good, serious film actors at some point either play, or develop, a character that would be considered handicapped.

Either they play a retarded person like Sean Penn in "I Am Sam," or a mentally handicapped person like DeNiro in "Awakenings" or the character he plays in "Stanley & Iris," who is illiterate. Cliff Robertson did it in "Charly." I'm sure there are others, like Leo DeCaprio in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?"

The rule amongst actors is that you should always play someone not as smart as you are but never try to play someone smarter than you are because it will show.

In addition, there is a wonderful bit in an episode of the HBO series "Extras," created by Ricky Gervais, where Kate Winslet, playing a nun in a Holocaust film, explains that she is doing it only because she wants to finally get an Oscar. The only way to get one, she says, is to play a nun, a victim of some terrible disease or a mentally disabled person.

In this episode she, also teaches Maggie how to talk dirty on the phone, while dressed as a nun. It's a great episode, but it's not why we're here. We're here to try to figure out if that's what Ryan Gosling is doing in "Lars and the Real Girl."

Ryan Gosling came out of nowhere to be nominated for an Oscar for playing a drug addicted teacher in "Half Nelson," then last year he was nominated again for playing, perhaps not a mentally handicapped, but certainly a socially handicapped person in a small town in Northern Minnesota, where winter is even longer than it is here.

Lars lives in the garage of his family home, which is occupied by his brother and pregnant sister-in-law. He keeps very much to himself, rebuffing the advances of co-workers and even his sister-in-law has to tackle him to get him to come over for dinner. The very touch of another human being feels, to him, like a burning sensation. Lars purchases, through the Internet, a life sized "sex doll." Not for its intended purpose, but for companionship. It is the only perfectly safe relationship he can support. It serves to get everyone off his back since they are constantly trying to set him up.

This premise could easily become a bad joke and make for a very short movie. Some of the men in the community make those bad jokes at first. You know the ones -- about wishing they had a girl friend that couldn't talk, and the leering about this apparently painfully shy man who now has purchased an anatomically correct playmate.

But Lars is a perfect, even courtly, gentleman. He never touches her, rushes to open doors for her, speaks for her, and carries her everywhere. He quite bravely introduces her to the entire community.  Page 1 of 2 

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