There was an interview with Matt Dillon ( the guy who played the main character ) and Lars Von Trier where Matt Dillon told the interviewer that he thought the movie would be harder to watch than it ended up being, since he knows that all of it is ultimately fake and nobody actually is being hurt for real.
I figured that perhaps a lot of people would not watch, so to speak, my film if I would try to beat Lars Von Trier. And I didn't want to beat Lars because I knew how horrible it could be. I wouldn't be able to see my own film. What good is this. So I instead used the Nolan technique. ( And quite frankly I was listening to Dunkirk soundtrack while writing that script ). And I believe I made a very good script. You can still scroll up to the top of the article to read it yourself.
The movie is strangely spiritual and almost religious, while in the same time being a satire on the church. As if Lars Von Trier is saying that the church or the ways the church behaves is inherently non-christian, or something. And that a true believer would be a wholly different person. As in the end, some characters see the deranged behavior of Watson's character as a sign of inherent goodness. Which makes, in my opinion, this movie to be among the most positive movies from Lars Von Trier.
In a nutshell, the movie feels like a mash between Adrian Lyne's Flashdance, Damien Chazelle's Babylon, Ti West's MaXXXine and Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac, well stirred and served in a colorful presentation straight from Nicolas Winding Refn.
There are parts of this film that make you feel scared, but they are done is such an entertaining way that they are quite a ride. There is one scene, which I was scared to see. Which is less than anything Lars Von Trier would do. So it's not scary. But I can see how it could be very disturbing to a lot of people. I think apart from that scene, the rest of the scares in this movie are taken not very seriously by Peele. And they are there to entertain ideas more than to make you scary. Which makes the movie strangely chill, even though gripping.
Michael Mann directed this movie with a very free camera. Mostly handheld. And with a lot of emotionality to the editing. It felt very much like watching a Lars Von Trier movie. Though with action and with a lot less depression.
Writing of Leon is strange. At times it seems like Besson just gets bored with the characters and invents a problem for them out of the thin air. Though there is a narrative structure that comes pretty much from the beginning till the end. Apart from the main love story, there is also a revenge story. But the movie ( especially the director's cut ) is more interested in just observing the two main leads interact with one another. It has pointless ( on the surface ) scenes. Like for example the scene where Matilda gets drunk and starts laughing hysterically. The amount of cringe-inducing stuff in the movie makes me think that a portion of it was written by Lars Von Trier. Though on the other hand, the movie also has a lot of moment of just pure joy. There is a scene where Leon just starts spraying Matilda from a spray bottle and she returns by dropping on him a bucket of dirty water. They are just having fun. And I want that scene to continue forever. I want a 3 hour long version of that scene.
This movie opens with a butt of Nicole Kidman. It ends with Nicole Kidman saying "Fuck" to Tom Cruise. From these two, you can probably already tell what the movie is about. Wikipedia says that the movie is an erotic-thriller. Which is kind of - yes. It's is rather erotic, though not in a way that somebody like Lars Von Trier would do. And it is also very much a thriller.
The direction of the movie is obviously very good. Luca Guadagnino shoots his movies with very precise camera. Nothing too fancy. Everything serves emotional purpose. He likes people to do things that would be in their character, but not necessarily important to the story, like dance. Which makes his editing very intuition-based and less clarity based. Which reminds the style of Lars Von Trier but not quite there. If there would be a scale between chaotic documentary style and a very precise and calculated cinematic style, Lars would be way closer to documentary than Luca. Luca is more in control, but lets a lot of character and intuition through. Which is very interesting.
You know how sometimes an artist might limit himself with what is available to him to make something unique? To force creativity? Like when Lars Von Trier did a movie without sets. And so the characters and the drama had to be on another level, so the audience wouldn't mind a movie with no sets. Or like when a writer might reveal the ending immediately, just to invent interesting ways to get to that ending, so the movie would still work. So this movie has a limitation that Brian Duffield set on himself.
While on the other hand European movies are more open about sexuality. Directors from Europe like Danish filmmakers Lars Von Trier and Nicolas Winding Refn, French Luc Besson, Maïmouna Doucouré and Gaspar Noé, Italian Luca Guadagnino and many others are notorious for near pornographic ( if not entirely pornographic ) depictions of sex or explorations of sexual taboos in films like Nymphomaniac, The Neon Demon, Léon: The Professional, Cuties, Love and Call Me By Your Name to name a few.
It was very nice to have a marathon of Ryan Gosling movies, because I stumbled upon this unique masterpiece. Lars and the Real Girl is a story about a sad relationship. About a man named Lars and his girl named Bianca who is sick and getting worse and worse with every passing day. The twist is, Bianca is actually a live sized sex doll.