Lars and the Real Girl: His True Companion

Baby I've been searching like everybody else Can't say nothing different about myself Sometimes I'm an angel And sometimes I'm cruel And when it comes to love I'm just another fool Yes, I'll climb a mountain I'm gonna swim the sea There ain't no act of God girl Could keep you safe from me My arms are reaching out Out across this canyon I'm asking you to be my true companion True companion True companion - from the song True Companion by Marc Cohn ( 1991)

Lars and the Real World is an achingly sad, funny, and beautiful testament to the lonely. As Saul Bellow wrote in his eponymously-titled novel, more die of heartbreak. Lars is cut-off, estranged from life, unable to cross that canyon that cuts him off from true experience. He is ill yes, but many of us are removed from him only by just a single trauma. Those of us who are uncomfortable in their skin, always painfully aware of their separateness, desperately envious of those who seem so at ease, so confident of themselves, and so certain of their place in the scheme of things. Lars is healed not only by a sympathetic doctor, but by those who love him and his community. He was never really alone - he just never before had the capacity to reach out for love and connectedness. Many sadly will never be given the same chance, those who through chance, circumstance, or wilful denial of the opportunity, will struggle painfully alone without hope along boulevards of broken dreams. I walk a lonely road The only one that I have ever known Don't know where it goes But it's home to me and I walk alone I walk this empty street On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams Where the city sleeps and I'm the only one and I walk alone I walk alone I walk alone I walk alone I walk alone My shadow's the only one that walks beside me My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me 'Til then I walk alone - From the song Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day (2004)