It may be the sweetest, most improbably entertaining movie you'll ever see about a lonely Midwesterner and his mail-order girlfriend ... who just happens to be a lifelike doll.

"Lars and the Real Girl" may sound lewd or loony, but in the hands of director Craig Gillespie and -- especially -- Ryan Gosling, it's not. It becomes the story of a socially backward bachelor who learns to embrace the world and have the world (or his Midwestern-Mayberry slice of it) embrace him.

Gosling's Lars lives in the garage apartment next to his family home, now occupied by his older brother, Gus (Paul Schneider), and pregnant sister-in-law, Karin (Emily Mortimer). He's skittish and shy, fending off invitations to meals by solicitous Karin or inquiries from churchgoers who say, "You're a good-looking fellow, Lars, where's your girlfriend?"

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'Lars and the Real Girl'

• Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson.
• Rating: PG-13 for some sex-related content.
• Web site: larsandtherealgirl-themovie.com

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Turns out the UPS man is bringing her, in a very large crate, and her name is Bianca.

"She's not from here," Lars says, in a master stroke of understatement. They met on the Internet, he says, and she doesn't speak much English. A missionary raised by nuns, Bianca doesn't think it proper that she share the garage with Lars, so he asks Gus and Karin if she can stay with them.

They may be flummoxed, frightened or just plain freaked out, but a family practitioner-psychologist (Patricia Clarkson) is not. She suggests everyone go along with Lars' delusion.

"Bianca's in town for a reason," the doc says, and it turns out she's there to help Lars deal with a painful past and to bring his neighbors together in ways they never could have imagined.

"Lars and the Real Girl," written by occasional "Six Feet Under" contributor Nancy Oliver, depends entirely on Gosling creating a sympathetic (not squirrely or borderline kinky) character who is uncomfortable in his own skin, to the point where a hug feels like a burn.

With a mustache, slightly dorky hair and clothing, and habit of blinking a lot, Lars bears only a passing resemblance to handsome, affable, funny Gosling. If Jimmy Stewart's Elwood P. Dowd could discover a 6-foot rabbit in "Harvey," Gosling can squire Bianca around and make you laugh and (maybe) cry.

Just when you think there's no easy way for this story to end, it finds a way, and while it almost tumbles over the edge, it doesn't. In the season of what Variety editor Peter Bart has rightly called "feel-bad" films, this is one that will leave you feeling good -- to your own astonishment.