I wanted to love this so much. Little Aussie girl, imaginary friends? Check. And it is at turns pretty interesting. A little like the office co-workers in Lars and the Real Girl having a “weird doll thing” of their own, this movie picks out the people in Kellyanne’s tight-knit community whose behaviour is really just as quirky as her insistence on the existence of the invisible Pobby and Dingan. You see her brother shake his head at their dad dowsing for a good spot to dig for opals the same way as he shakes his head at her when she speaks of her friends. There’s a guy who’s cut a copy of an invite to Princess Diana’s funeral out of the paper, “stuck it down on cardboard, put it in a frame, tourists love it.” Indeed the whole place is there for this “opal dream” that will only come true for a select enough few to make it no less ridiculous a pursuit than anything a child can come up with.

So it’s not without depth, that’s for sure. But at 85 minutes, it’s surprising, even infuriating, how much of it feels unnecessary. There’s a lot, or what feels like a lot, of people running or riding bikes around in the dark looking for Pobby and Dingan and not really getting anywhere. There’s a lot of the girl just looking a little pallid like Elliot in ET when his pal appears to be dying. It’s a dire comparison and I hate myself for making it, but there just aren’t that many imaginary friends movies lol so I’m forced: I’d still rather be watching Drop Dead Fred, to be honest, even though this movie is much closer to the aforementioned Lars and the Real Girl, almost, the more I think about it, eerily so … and though that was certainly the better movie … I cried a helluva a lot more at the end of this one.

Reading the premise of this movie, whenever that was last year, I couldn’t by any stretch see how it could possibly make anything approaching a good movie. But when it got the Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay, then I heard someone comparing it to Harold and Maude ... what can I say, but I was pretty excited to find out just how it would turn me around.

In the end, I think I like more the fact that this film exists than the film itself. It says – sort of – weird is fine as long as nobody gets hurt, which is like practically my mantra; and as quite the weirdo myself, well, I’d be lying if I said it’s a complete waste of time. Though its ultimate goal is that final healing line, “You wanna take a walk?” which tells us Lars is “back to normal” ... on the way there are certainly hints – like the big one in Lars’ office of a male colleague’s obsession with action men and a female admirer’s teddy bear which he later, in a beautiful scene, “resuscitates” for her after said male colleague hangs it (she hid his action men; fairdos lol) – that we’re basically all pretty weird in our own way.

I’m not sure it entirely succeeds – I hate the fact that for a lot of people it will only confirm their assumption that all quiet loner types have such a similar homelife, talking to inanimate objects or even thin air etc. Very early in the movie, Lars’ sister-in-law has a great line about Lars’ aversion to social contact. Ryan Gosling’s performance is reminiscent of Adam Sandler in Punch-Drunk Love ... in fact, the score sounds a lot like Jon Brion too. I have no idea where the Harold and Maude comparison came from, except in that it’s a “quirky love story” which kind of shows exactly the simpleminded thought process I fear taking the movie the completely wrong way.

The main thing that must be said about the movie is … it’s not funny. There are giggles in places here, but do not be misled into thinking it’s a comedy or you’ll only be disappointed. I think to get the most out of this one you really need to go in with an open mind for a quirky but meaningful psychological discussion about life, loneliness, social interaction and love. It’s extraordinary how touching it gets in the end when you consider the premise; how you actually find yourself almost slapping yourself out of thinking of Bianca like a real character, especially during one beautifully lit kiss towards the end; and considering that, I’m more than slightly awed by it to be honest.

It struck me while watching this for the first time in years (it having been one of those movies I feel like I watched on a loop when I first bought it on VHS all those years ago) that it’s one of those movies I should actually hate considering how much I tend to fly off the handle when it comes to overly typical presentations of the genders – I mean, this is about the most typical it’s possible to be, perhaps exemplified by the wonderful scene where Rosie O’Donnell goes on a huge tirade against men in a grocery store, leaving two of the guys at the door bewildered, looking as though they may have actually taken in what she said, before they break the silence with, “So whaddya think?” “Nice tits?” “Great ass.”

Anyway, I don’t know why it never bugs me like a lot of similar movies, but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just that I’ll let such stuff slide just the once and this is the instance I picked. It doesn’t really matter anyway. What never fails to make me smile in this movie is Natalie Portman – I might like her in this even more than I like her in Leon, it’s such an alternately beautiful, hilarious, and crushing character … like Uma Thurman is this hyperreal version of the “hot women” in the world, she’s the embodiment of the “disturbingly tempting teen” and though Scott Rosenberg’s screenplay occasionally grinds like nails on a blackboard with its mushiness, he never resorts to the clichés on her, and all the kooky lines that emmanate from her ring heartbreakingly true (“I’m 13 but I’m an old soul,” “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve come back here to the house of loneliness and tears … to come to some sort of decision about life … a life decision if you will,” “I like to mash snow. It gives me a tremendous feeling of self satisfaction,” “Alas, poor Romeo, we can’t do diddly,” the quotable lines are endless). The thing between her and Tim Hutton is just one of the sweetest “love” stories ever – I hate to say that it’s “Lolita done right” because “Lolita” was anything but wrong, lol (I mean in artistic terms) ... but it’s all in that scene by the ice-skaters, the whole thing about Hutton being Pooh to Portman’s Christopher Robin, it’s so well played. The perfect exchange between her and Michael Rapaport lol – “So you’re the little neighborhood Lolita,” “So you’re the alcoholic high school buddy shit-for-brains.” – sends you out giddy. If you haven’t seen it all these 12 years, make it a priority, ‘cos it’s adorable.