The film: Nancy Oliver is best known for penning television series Six Feet Under - so it's hardly a surprise her first stab at writing for the big screen has a seemingly morbid premise.

Lars and the Real Girl revolves around a socially awkward young man's make-believe relationship with a sex doll but just as she has managed to conjure an engaging drama about human existence from a family of undertakers, Oliver has delivered a measured and moving piece that's completely devoid of the crass humour that usually drives films about men with a sex toy.

Lars (Ryan Gosling, third right), the shy white-collar drone, does not see the doll as a sex toy. At the start of the film, he refuses to connect with his elder brother (Paul Schneider, right), his doting wife (Emily Mortimer, second right) and an admiring colleague (Kelli Garner), but gradually opens up after acquiring a girlfriend in Bianca, a human-size, 'physiologically correct' marionette.

Initial reluctance on everybody's part to accept this newcomer in town melts away as everyone close ranks to treat Bianca as human, an act which they believe may ease Lars out of the traumatic shell he inhabits.

Although at times overtly optimistic about human goodness - it is debatable whether a church-going, conservative backwater like Lars' town would be so tolerant of Lars' new love - Oliver's droll comedy is nuanced and imbued with symbolism (especially in the exchanges at the office of psychologist Dagmar, played by Patricia Clarkson) that hints at how Lars, in an unconscious way, is using Bianca as an extension of his own self, a proxy through which he can express his own emotions, doubts and fears.

Combined with a subtle realisation by director Craig Gillespie and a cast delivering intense, unshowy performances as the film's decidedly unglamorous small-town protagonists, Lars and the Real Girl offers a substantial and sympathetic look at how an individual battles alienation in a most unconventional way.

The extras: Not the best of packages on offer, with bonus features comprising two short making-of featurettes - complete with behind-the-scenes footage and talking-head interviews - including one dedicated to the making of Bianca.

There's also a deleted scene about Bianca in the bath - the fact that this has been left out reveals

the filmmakers' urge to steer clear

of the kind of more obvious humour that a film with a sex doll would be expected to have.

The verdict: Although sometimes verging on being unreal and sentimental, this is a poignant piece that refuses to mine cheap laughs.