It goes without saying that Lars harbors some deep-seated pain inside, and his counseling visits with Dagmar (in the guise of the latter tending to Bianca's health) provide some of the best scenes. A lesser movie would have resorted to cheap flashbacks and psychoanalytic babble, but this screenplay wisely focuses on how to deal with Lars's loneliness in the present instead of trying to explain away the past. That Dagmar and everyone else are able to project the pathos that Lars needs to heal entirely through Bianca makes it all the more subtly remarkable. And there is a transcendently sweet scene involving a teddy bear that I must not reveal because it should make your heart leap up on its own as it did mine.

At the center, of course, is Gosling, who just keeps topping himself in his range and caliber of performances. The characters he has played, including a neo-Nazi in The Believer, a district attorney in Fracture, an inner-city teacher addicted to drugs in Half Nelson, and now a shy and lonely young man, have nothing in common except being so meticulously inhabited. Here, watching Gosling's complete command of tone between quiet humor and genuine sympathy, we almost get the sense that he is creating this unique character out of thin air (not to mention making Bianca into a symbolic character we actually care about).

The movie must have been a difficult high-wire act for Gillespie and Oliver, the former no less after he made the crass and dreadful Mr. Woodcock. They supply the humorous reaction shots that touch on our instinctive responses to the sight of a life-sized mannequin. But they avoid any temptation for mockery. The complete sincerity they maintain works as their fulcrum to successfully cross the tightrope between drama and light comedy, idealism, and, yes, even plausibility.

Lars and the Real Girl is easily one of the best films of the year and can only be called uncompromisingly moving. It is hard to express in words the amount of courage and chance-taking required to so singularly bring out our capacity for empathy and understanding. And in a world where some people are ostracized for being different or misunderstood, a movie like this is a warm antidote.

Bottom line: What are you waiting for? Go see it!