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Created Nov 25, 2007 06:14PM PST • Edited May 03, 2011 01:31AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Perfect 5.0

   Wonderful movie: LOL funny yet deeply serious. Lars – the manchild played with perfect pitch by Ryan Gosling – has one of the most entertaining breakdowns in cinematic history. His need to cavort around town with an inanimate woman provides the grist for an involving psychiatric adventure, while his community’s reactions create frequent hilarious and touching moments.

4. Acting

   Perfect 5.0

   Understated, perfectly modulated performances all around.

   Ryan Gosling delivers his second strong starring performance of the year, the other being in Fracture. The stark difference between the two characters mark him as an actor of uncommon range.

   Emily Mortimer and Kelly Garner are both terrific, by turns nurturing, vulnerable, and strong. And let’s also give a shout out to Bianca (as Herself), the most popular woman in town.

5. Male Stars Perfect 5.0

6. Female Stars Perfect 5.0

7. Female Costars Perfect 5.0

8. Male Costars Perfect 5.0

10. Film

    Perfect 5.0

    This brilliant story – aside from delivering a bellyful of genuine laughs – deals sensitively and perceptively with deep seated psychological wounds.

11. Direction Perfect 5.0

12. Play Perfect 5.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Great use of Talking Heads during the party scene. No wonder all these stiffs started dancing.

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.1

    The movie is almost entirely chaste, notwithstanding the fact that a central character is an anatomically correct ‘sex doll.’ Or so we’re told…

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Polite 1.2

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    As Lars personal history becomes clear over the course of the movie, we come to realize that he most likely suffers from some form of Attachment Disorder.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.5

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0