I attended a writing workshop this summer where best-selling author Angela Hunt spoke. She used lots of movie examples in discussing the numerous items necessary for good fiction and she mentioned a movie with Ryan Gosling called Lars and the Real Girl.

Just a heads up. Lars and the Real Girl will be one of the strangest movies you will ever see. 

It may also be one of the sweetest. 

Lars has had a rough childhood. His mother died in childbirth and his father never got over it. Now a reclusive adult, Lars has few social skills and struggles to connect. 

Until—he gets a doll off the Internet who becomes his best friend. 

While his family freaks, the local shrink tells them just to go with it. And they do—along with the entire town.

It makes for some good humor, but the Christlikeness of Lars’s family and the townspeople impressed me. They simply love this boy through his issues until he’s healed—and it’s beautiful. A little weird, but beautiful.

It brought to mind verses like:

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters . . . Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. (1 John 3:16, 18)

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Freely you have received; freely give. (Matthew 10:8)

Each of us has experienced God’s love. Lars and the Real Girl pictures His love lived out. 

Who is your Lars?