I a fan of the Office, the Daily Show, and Little Miss Sunshine, so naturally I was excited to see Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life. Though the movie had its moments, I was rather underwhelmed.
The movie features Dan (Carell), widower, advice columnist, and father to three daughters. In the first 10 minutes of the movie, the clan packs up to go to a family reunion at a cabin somewhere. Leaving the girls behind to get a grip on his problems, Dan stumbles across a woman in a book store, played by Juliette Binoche, and the two instantly hit it off in the way only Hollywood can make serendipitous meetings seem so wonderful. They part ways after exchanging numbers, only to meet again at the reunion, where Binochet's character is revealed to be Dan's brother's new girlfriend. And so the rest of the movie is Dan being extremely depressed while getting himself into rediculous situations as he tries to avoid Binochet at all costs.
There are a few really funny scenes, but overall it was just slightly above mediocre for me. Carell demonstrates that he is a pretty good dramatic actor (even though this is comedy), and the end makes everyone feel good. My wife might kill me for this (she loved the movie), but I only give this a mild recommendation.
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My wife and I sat down to watch this last night. It had been on my radar ever since the trailer appeared last fall, so I was pretty keen to finally be able to see it.
We were both incredibly disappointed.
You may have heard of something called the Idiot Plot - the plot which requires all the characters to be idiots for it to work. Well, this isn't quite that, but it's a kissing cousin. This is one of those movies where the characters only do things because the plot requires them to.
For instance, Dan is supposedly a famous newspaper columnist, yet we never read or hear about any of his work, except for a few rather mediocre lines at the end. He just IS, got it? And why does Dan act like a total nitwit throughout most of the movie? Shouldn't someone be pointing out to him how his behavior totally contradicts everything he's written in his parenting advice column? Shouldn't he be having a huge crisis of conscience over the disparity between his words and his actions? Nope - all we get is lots and lots and lots of silly teenage-like angst on his part. I guess that's supposed to be the film's conceit, but it didn't ring true to who the character was. C'mon, you don't make it for four years as a widowed father of three adolescent girls by doing the silly antics we see on display here.
Here's some more: why was Marie attracted to Mitch in the first place? Why do Dan and Marie have such awkward encounters (1) salsa dancing, (2) in the bathroom, (3) in the bowling alley (where his family inexplicably discovers them - surprise, surprise!), and elsewhere? Because the plot dictates it. There seems to be no logical reason why, as these actions and events do not organically flow from who the characters are. That is, if we're supposed to take these people seriously and learn a lesson or two to apply to our own lives. Which, judging by the ending, we are.
Given the premise of the film, the acting talent on display (poor Juliette Binoche), and what it wants to accomplish, it really fails to live up to expectations.
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