Lars and the Real Girl Once upon a time I sat in a lit class and learned that male bonding took place in slightly exotic slightly dangerous locales; road trips, hunting trips and the like; while female bonding took place in the kitchen. Ever since I have watched for and rejoiced to find non-kitchen female bonding scenes. So how could I not love a movie that shows a male bonding scene that takes place in the basement, beside the dryer, while folding laundry? Lars is a young man well on his way to becoming one of Garrison Keillor's "Norwegian bachelor farmers". Ryan Gosling is wonderful in the part of Lars, he has perfected all the glancing looks and tics of the painfully shy. Then one day, emboldened perhaps by a double helping of Powdermilk Biscuits*, Lars orders himself a lady friend. The screenwriter and director show great restraint; it would have been very easy to slip in a cheap joke or two, but Lars does not see the "relationship" as sexual and everyone else in the movie accepts his view (altho' some with a bit of difficulty). A sweet little movie about love (caritas not eros).

*"Powdermilk Biscuits give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done"- Garrison Keillor