If this is “Real Life” I don’t want to live it
“Dan in Real Life” is a confused movie. I’m not sure if it wants to be a romantic comedy, a situational comedy or just an old-fashioned love story. And because of that, this movie fails to become anything worth watching.
“Dan in Real Life” stars Steve Carell (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) as Dan, a newspaper columnist and widower who can’t seem to achieve anything above “loser” status with his three daughters. Dan is an overprotective parent who misses his first wife but still yearns to find true love again.
Every year, Dan and his extended family head up to the family cabin. This year, Dan stops at a local bookstore and meets Marie, played by Juliette Binoche (“Chocolat”). The movie wants us to believe that this first encounter was love at first sight, but it never gives us much to go on there. They have a quirky conversation about books but nothing to indicate that they’ve fallen head over heels after meeting each other.
Once at the family reunion, Dan is excited that he may have just met someone new, until he finds out the person he met is dating his brother, played by Dane Cook (“Employee of the Month”).
That’s basically where the movie falls apart. It seems that the filmmakers, just because they have Carell in the movie, felt they needed to place him in increasingly awkward situations and watch as Carell acts aggravated, which he’s very good at if anyone has ever watched “The Office.” But, that’s just the problem. This isn’t “The Office.” I didn’t want to be able to call this film “Michael Scott in Real Life,” but sadly you could just about call it that.
It seems that Peter Hedges, the director, completely missed out on the little gem that Carell was in last year called “Little Miss Sunshine.” Carell can act. He can act very well. There are a few glimmers of hope in Dan as we see his heart breaking ever so slightly, but then we’re interrupted by a rude joke about masturbation, or a fall off the roof ripped directly from “Meet the Parents.”
And about Cook. I don’t understand the obsession with him. He’s definitely the wrong person for this part. You never know if his character is supposed to be the bad guy or the good guy, and then a decision at the end helps you figure that out but completely ruins any mood the film had.
The stuff that works in this movie are the scenes with Dan and his daughters. There is some real emotion in those scenes, but everything else is fodder we’ve already seen.
-aaron.peck@aggiemail.usu.edu