A Take Away from Lars and The Real Girl

Dani and I watched the movie, Lars and the Real Girl last week. It was a random choice by her through her Blockbuster flicks deal or whatever. I'd never heard of it and was a little suspicious of it being that it was about a guy (Ryan Goesling) who's convinced his blowup doll is a real person that he is dating. It turned out to be extremely entertaining and not creepy at all. I got a lot of laughs out of the guy's sincere belief that Bianka, the doll, was a real person who spoke to him. He was legitimately in love and the reactions of family and friends were equally entertaining as they went from being weirded out, to playing along, to completely embracing Bianka in the same real way Lars did.

I only write of it now in order to share a quote from it with you. For the most part it was just a funny movie for me, but there was one scene when Lars is talking ot his older brother, Gus (whom he's had a strained relationship with) and Lars asks Gus when he knew he was a man...what event brought about manhood versus not being grown up. Gus's response really stood out to me as so true:

"Well, it's not like you're one thing or the other, okay? There's still a kid inside but you grow up when you decide to do right, okay, and not what's right for you, what's right for everybody, even when it hurts."

The fact that his response acknowledges that we never really let go of being a kid or even want to but that we reach a point of understanding responsibility and right versus wrong...and that we can put those we love before ourselves. Whoever wrote that line, in my opinion, nailed it.