Dan in Real Life

Wife, 20-something daughter and my old grizzled self enjoyed Dan in Real Life last night. I walked in the room after the film had already begun, just in time to catch the bookstore scene where the widower and father of teen girls meets his new love, Juliette Binoche. No, I'm not going to rent the English Patient, so don't bug me. Carell's awkward infatuations amuse and Marie (Binoche) is attracted, but there's a problem.

Most of the scenes, a play of manners really, in a Bernard Shaw sort of way, as in the Importance of Being Earnest perhaps, is written by Peter Hedges, Pieces of April. This one flows better than P of A, the characters a bit more believable. After all, this is a comedy and the small vacation house with so many kids and adults, something claustrophobic and comical must happen always. I think some of the viewers complained about TV-Sitcom like scenes, one-room situations of embarrassment or one-liners, but I didn't mind.

Look, I'll leave it to the longer reviews to give you a scene by scene; DIRL is a touching, smart comedy that most human beings might enjoy. By the way, it's white people in their habitat.

There was a lot of promise in this movie. I enjoyed it up till about midway through. Dan is introduced well. He's raising three daughters alone since the death of his wife. We like him right away. He's funny and we feel for him so we are ready for him to fall in love. He meets up for a week-long family reunion and the big family scenes are fun. He meets a woman in a bookstore and they sit and talk for a long time before he gets her phone number. We know there will be some sort of complications to the match and are ready for something clever to get the two of them together. But alas, most of what follows is not terribly entertaining. The movie can't decide whether it wants to be light or serious and simultaneously fails at both, which one might not have thought possible. One moment Dan is suffering over the woman he can't be with, the next he's hiding in the shower. I really did like the movie somewhat, but just felt it could have been so much better.

This movie is a lot more enjoyable if you find Steve Carel absolutely hilarious. If you're not so familiar with Carel, you might see this movie as watered down version of movie like "Sleepless in Seattle" or "You've Got Mail" but not nearly as engaging. It has it's funny parts with Carel being his usual funny self shining through the character so if you just love him,
it's still a watchable movie.

There is barely another actor like Steve Carell today. How natural feeling all of his characters are. I just knew he was someone special as I watched him on the Daily Show nearly ten years ago. In this film, his naturalness is complemented with the warmth of a family member and I swear to this...you will really feel that he is a family member.

Apart from Carell (and the other actors who did a fine job in this film), Peter Hedges, the director of this film, has created a wonderfully sweet storyline. I have not seen other Hedges' films, however I have been told that they are quite good...therefore other reviews to follow.

The music in this film fits the film perfectly. For those who do not know, Sondre Lerche (a indie-folk artist from Norway) did the music to this film. Indie fans will surely appreciate Lerche's music, which seems to quite obviously fit Hedges' taste in music as it is sort of similar to the music from Hedges' other film "About a Boy"...which I did not see, only heard.

On a more scholarly note, this film does a wonderful job of showing family dynamics: brothers and sisters, brothers and brothers, siblings and parents, grandparents and grandchildren, etc.

All in all, the film has the obvious twists and turns and really does not do anything new, however, because of the cast, the music, the direction, this film will surely bring to you that good-good feeling all over.

It was a good movie, about how different everyone is around someone they fall for.