Dan in Real Life

Even though he knows his brother is using his material with Binoche, he is not disrespectful of his brother. The scenes that made my family, including my husband, who doesn’t usually laugh at the movies, laugh out loud and loudly were:
1) when Steve Carell was trying to follow along with the family aerobics training,
2) when Steve Carell’s brothers are making fun of his upcoming blind date. My boys loved the depiction of a big family that loves each other, has a great time together and can make fun of each others flaws, and
3) when Steve Carell is trying to dance with his blind date.
Carell and Binoche’s facial expressions make the movie. Everyone in our theater was laughing and shouting things out loud like, “He’s still wearing bowling shoes!” You know people love and feel good about a movie when grown adults forget where they are and shout things out at the screen. There are a few sexual innuendos, but they were very mild. Take into account that there was no foul language, no guns and violence and killing, nothing but good, clean family relationships and fun. We left the movie wishing we could spend more time with our extended families and that our in-laws had more children. Great, funny movie and a must see for all adults and teens.

On that note, please keep in mind that not every clip you see in a trailer makes it into the theatrical release. There is NO scene (as depicted in the previews) of the oldest driving out into traffic only to have cars screeching to a halt seconds later. Keep in mind, my fellow moviegoers, commercials and trailers are apt to show you things a little differently. I think with this movie’s trailer, the filmmakers were to trying to entice people into buying the image of Steve Carell in a light-hearted, family-oriented comedy. Well, it is—and then it isn’t. It’s very clean, content-wise. Indeed, there are a few funny parts, but they’re spaced out. There are also several dramatic elements, so it’s altogether safe to head this flick with the increasingly popular portmanteau “dramedy.” Or perhaps “romantic dramedy” is the best term. In any event, Dan in Real Life works well in this vein, venturing into quasi-slapstick just once in a scene where Dan rolls off the roof and lands on the bushes. No one notices of course, despite the deafening thud.

The story takes off when Dan and his kids jet off to his parents’ home for a big family reunion. His siblings and their significant others are there, including Dane Cook as the bachelor brother. Cook’s girlfriend Marie joins the fun, but unbeknownst to Cook, she met Dan hours earlier in a chance encounter at a bookstore where the two of them hit it off quite well (which is surprising because Dan is extremely one-sided—when someone meets you for the first time, don’t proceed to give them your unabridged life story). Needless to say, Dan had no idea this wonderful gal is in fact his hermano’s novia. Tensions and infatuations mount as the next three days unfold with Dan and Marie trying to cope with their secret feelings for one another.

At one point, Dan is set up on a blind date with an ol’ acquaintance, and just moments before his date arrives, his family is gathered around the piano singing about her in what turns out to be a very funny scene. Dan, uneasy about the blind date, is accompanied by his brother and Marie. The four go to a bar, and a ridiculous night ensues in which Dan does everything he can to make Marie jealous. The next day, Marie gets back at Dan by serving him burnt pancakes and sacking him in football. The two roll around on one another, and by this point, their flirting is picked up by virtually everyone but Cook (naturally). Everything backfires on poor Dan when Marie decides that night it’s too much to be living a lie with Cook, and so she takes off early the next morning. Later, she phones and meets up with Dan at a bowling alley where the two of them, whilst in the middle of a warm embrace, are ratted out by the entire family. At this point, Cook socks Dan, Marie flees the scene, and eventually everyone goes home where the rest of Dan’s day falls apart, including his coveted shot of getting syndicated. Within a day, the brothers sort of patch their rift as Cook is seen darting off with Dan’s blind date. Just like that—it’s too surreal but a real possibility nonetheless. It’s suggested in an earlier scene that Cook’s “been around” and never really settled down. So that’s that. Cook bounces back from his breakup with Marie and moves on faster than a german shepherd on a ham sandwich. And as for Dan? Well, the end of the movie is formulaic and I needn’t spell it out.

The movie works well on many down-to-earth levels: Dan is the picture of the lonely man that wanders around the house when everyone else is having fun. The adults all come in pairs, and the children all play by themselves. In one scene, Dan goes out to the shore to join his nephews throwing rocks, but he is greeted rather unenthusiastically, so he turns around and chucks a huge rock in frustration before finally leaving. At night, Dan sleeps alone in the laundry room while others share a room with their spouse or brother or sister. In some ways, it’s symbolic of his life: everyone else, including one of his daughters, is with someone, while Dan is left on his own to raise his girls. Even though his wife passed away 4 years ago, he is still feels a lot of pain and sadness. When he meets Marie, he feels new life and passion breathe through him once again. He falls head over heels and is always tongue-tied when he talks to her. Our hero is caught in a struggle between loyalty to his brother and a desire to be with Marie.

Steve Carell does a wonderful job of bringing this life and a superb level of humanness to Dan’s character. I think Carell works best in this kind of role as opposed to his regular routine. Unlike other funny guys (e.g. Jim Carrey), he makes the switch to a normal, everyday, average Joe flawlessly. If anything, Carell seems a little strained—like he’s trying too hard to be funny—in his comedies but is a natural in this role.

While this is a very pro-family film, God is absent in the character’s lives. In no way is He mentioned or sought after when the characters have troubles. Instead they rely solely on their families, love, patience, and mutual understanding to sort things out; this is all fine and dandy, but in a film that dares to exclude most Hollywoodized content, it wouldn’t have been a stretch to include the Father in the picture, even in something as simple as a heart-to-heart prayer from Dan.

Dan was the only real character, and most of what happened to him was so sad and depressing. It was annoying that the entire time, Dan was the “only one” who had issues. Everyone else was just an angel! I found myself telling him to just go for a walk, just leave the group for a while… what I would do feeling the way he felt throughout the majority of the film. Some things that frustrated me: Dan tells his daughter, “You can’t know you love someone after three days,” but ends up eating his words, which were actually good and biblical, when he ends up doing that very thing.

It appears as though he falls in love with Marie in about two hours. Marie, while a very fun, interesting person, was also someone who was very flippant about her current relationship with Mitch and didn’t seem to care at all most of the time about Dan’s feelings, even though she reveals later that she is feeling the same way. She is a flirt with him and just laughs at him while he is struggling to figure out what to do. At one point in the movie, Dan’s mom says, “One mistake you didn’t make was falling in love with Marie,” and my husband was like, “No, that was a big mistake.”

All of the emotional turmoil Dan is going through is mostly the result of infatuation, not love. I couldn’t stand watching how terribly his daughters treated him. He wasn’t the best dad, but I was wishing throughout the entire movie that someone would just listen to him. For such a “great” family, that never, ever happened.

Yes, Dan messed up—but so did the rest of his family, who mostly seemed to think of themselves as “better” than him and more 'well-behaved.' I just saw a bunch of hypocrites. His daughter Cara especially was a huge brat throughout the entire movie, and the only person that ever checks her behavior is her dad. Marie even calls her ridiculous antics after her boyfriend leaves “sweet.” I wanted to see Dan connect with his daughters—I felt like there were several times where that could have happened, but they didn’t love him well either, and cut him short. The worst part is probably the “blind date” his family sets up for him to “fix” his problem.

The entire family literally makes fun of this woman right up until she shows up at the door. What follows is an awkward and very messed up double date, where Dan and Marie try to “one-up” each other and make one another jealous. This is quite realistic, but it ends on a really sad note: Dan goes home with Ruthie, and we all know what happens.

This was the most morally disappointing aspect, and yet his family thinks its fine and dandy. I guess this movie was just halfway good for me. I related to Dan, I loved the acting by Steve Carrell and I felt like this movie addressed so many good issues, but fell short time and time again. Close to the end of the movie I was very choked up by the entire situation (after Dan gets caught), but then the way the movie ends was so fast and weird and unreal… I feel like the entire family might need a little bit more time to heal over what happened (catching Dan and Marie) than one night.

As a discerning Christian I think there are a lot of things one could glean from and talk about with this movie, but overall I think it dumbs down some really serious issues and leaves one with patched-up “solutions” to really complicated problems.

I also feel like this movie is kind of “making things okay” in its own subtle way; however, this movie is a lot better than most movies I’ve seen in the last several years. It’s just sad to me that I want to watch movies, even cleaner ones like this, less and less.