‘Lars and the Real Girl’

Someone asked me last week (they really did) what I thought was the hardest kind of movie to make. I said nothing is more difficult than a film that deals honestly with warm human emotions without going overboard into the saccharine and the sentimental. Which is exactly what “Lars and the Real Girl” accomplishes. It’s a Frank Capra-style comic throwback, a PG-13 tribute to the joys of friendship, community and love, but its inspiration is that it’s constructed around one of the most salacious items modern culture provides. That contradiction, top-lined by Ryan Gosling as the romantically challenged Lars, results in the sweetest, most innocent, most completely enjoyable film around. Of course, if that’s not for you, there’s always “Sleuth.” Or “Saw IV.”