DAN IN REAL LIFE
The Love You Make Is The One Your Brother Might Take
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "Dan In Real Life"
By Omar P.L. Moore/October 26, 2007
All In The Family: Amy Ryan, Steve Carell (in the title role), Norbert
Leo Butz and Jessica Hecht, in "Dan In Real Life", which opened across America
today. The film was directed by Peter Hedges. (Photos: Merie W.
Wallace/Touchstone Pictures)
Steve Carell is in his element in Peter Hedges new film "Dan In
Real Life", a tender, bitter-sweet comedy about a widowed and accomplished
author who just can't seem to find love. The film opened across the U.S.
and Canada today. As Dan Burns, Mr. Carell provides his character with a
sad-sack demeanor, a man with a puppy dog-eyed sensitivity that makes you feel
sorry for him. He loves his three scrutinizing daughters even though he
employs a tough (no) love policy upon the middle daughter Cara, a pre-teen who
has her eye on the boy of her dreams. As played by Brittany Robertson,
Cara is a most entertaining character, and Miss Robertson does a good job
keeping the laughter going. The film's screenplay (written by Pierce
Gardner and Peter Hedges) contains some priceless lines and scenarios, not to
mention dialogue that is occasionally humorous. While the script is hardly
a perfect masterpiece, the actors enliven it with subtlety and less of the
hi-jinks that Mr. Carell employed in "Evan Almighty", a film that The Popcorn
Reel recommended highly for its laugh factor this past summer.
"Dan In Real Life" is set in Rhode Island, a quiet, sleepy part of the eastern
U.S. seaboard, and the cinematography (by Lawrence Sher) of the gray skies and
fall forestry casts an austere yet melancholic feel over the both the state and
in specific the Burns family. Dan takes his daughters to stay with the
extended Burns family on a vacation and it is a busy time. Along the way
he meets Marie (Juliette Binoche) and has a rapport with her that he looks to
pursue. Dan will later discover that the game of romance has a very small
playing field encased in an even smaller world, but even if the coincidence may
feel too good to be true, the film makes the best of a situation that could
easily run off the rails. The film, for all its endearing touches (and a
Binoche performance that while amusing is in some ways a cheeky self-parody of
her more serious roles in films like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being") wanes
quite a bit in the final 20 minutes before it concludes. There is a funny
scene that the two share that plays on both subtle and unsubtle levels, and it
is pure Carell and Binoche.
All You Need Is Love (and Laughter): Juliette Binoche as Marie, in Peter
Hedges' romantic comedy "Dan In Real Life".
As you watch parts of Mr. Hedges' film, you may feel that there is an
overcrowding of characters, and a few less cooks in some scenes would have done
well to preserve the story's broth (and consequently, its level of engagement
with its audience.) More scenes with Dan and his daughters instead of some
of the more larger-scale madcap interfamilial exchanges would have been better.
Even so, in this film Mr. Carell holds up his end of the bargain very well, as
do Alison Pill (as Jane Burns), who has her moments, Dane Cook (rebounding from
the forgettable "Good Luck Chuck") as Mitch, Dan's younger brother. Mitch
knows how to entertain, even if he is a mensch of sorts. Emily Blunt ("The
Devil Wears Prada", "The Jane Austen Book Club") makes a cameo appearance as
Ruthie Draper, a childhood girl whose nickname is a running joke of sorts during
a famous Mitch moment in the film. Dianne Wiest plays the role of Nana,
the matriarch who leaves her mark in a few lines. Ms. Wiest is no stranger
to this type of role at this point in her career (she was also in "Dedication"
this past summer as a landlord who gives her daughter what-for), but she
continues to do it with an aplomb that many in the audience who grew up with her
will admire, or at least wink at. John Mahoney plays Papa Burns, and
actor-of-the moment Amy Ryan (last week's "Gone Baby Gone" and this week's
"Before The Devil Knows You're Dead") has a small role as Eileen. Norbert
Leo Butz is also good as Clay Burns, another of Dan's brothers, all of whom are
either married or involved in other serious relationships.
The nice surprise of "Dan In Real Life" is its soundtrack music by Sondre Lerche.
The 25-year-old Norwegian has a beautiful catalog of songs he composed and music
that he scores exclusively for the film -- nicely flavoring it -- fits
wonderfully with the idyllic and peaceful settings of the New England area that
this romantic comedy is centered in. Peter Hedges, who previously directed
such films as "Pieces Of April", dispenses with the digital hand-held cameras of
that film to make a less-edgy work here, and though the more cynical members of
a more discerning movie audience will probably look upon "Dan In Real Life" as a
fluffy pillow whose feathers have long since been stolen, the film is a
well-intentioned, sweetly satisfying journey about love and family. Dan
Burns works hard for love, and this film does the same where its audience is
concerned. As the saying goes, "no pain, no gain."
"Dan In Real Life" is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of
America for some innuendo. The film's duration is one hour and 43 minutes.
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2007. All Rights
Reserved.