[spoiler alert]
Lars and the Real Girl is a film about a young man who begins to use a “Real Doll” mannequin, as if it is an actual companion and girlfriend, introducing her to family and friends. Surprisingly, this life-sized, sex doll becomes a part of the community. Everyone interacts with it, as if it is a real person and even look forward to seeing or spending time with it.
This is ironic because the protagonist, Lars, always avoids social engagements. In other words, he is an extreme introvert. His world is unspoken and unseen. There is nothing wrong about being an introvert in an extremely extroverted society, but it is a striking to contrast this with the growing popularity and social calendar of his Real Doll. The community fully embraces the lie, that Lars has a real girlfriend, and Lars’ “girlfriend” is invited to Sunday church, to volunteer at local schools and to become a model at a boutique.
Like Lars, sometimes people lose interest in real people. Some would rather stay in their safe cocoon, and they feel disinterested in going out, like a caterpillar during metamorphosis. In this film, the entire community begins to function like a protective cocoon. Through his “girlfriend’s” popularity, Lars is invited to an increasing number of social engagements. Yet, there is another reversal. This exceptional circumstance makes it acceptable for other community members to project their own psychological material onto the doll, under the name of it being “for Lars,” and Lars becomes irritable at having to share the object of his projections.
There are many young men like Lars, in Japan. They are called Hikikomori (meaning, socially withdrawn) or NEET (meaning, No Employment, Education or Training). In general, the number of young men who struggle to integrate into society is increasing. So, with growing concern, desperate families are hiring “rental sisters.” These 30-something women visit Hikikomori and have conversations. Their aim is to increase socialization using an informal and unthreatening approach— acting as if they are a sister. In Japan, even strangers can be referred to as “sister,” which may support this role-play and the necessary transference. In the film, and similar to a Hikikomori or a Neet in Japan, Lars role-plays with his doll and even transfers—not an imaginary sister—but his own mother onto the doll. We learn that Lars had lost his mother at birth. Importantly, his new girlfriend is a doll and won’t die, unlike his mother did. Both Lars’ doll and the Japanese Rental Sisters seem to serve a need for object-constancy among these psychologically vulnerable men, until they no longer need it.