Dan in Real Life (2007) - Carell leads Hedges' despicable romcom

♥

+ 2nd Worst Movie of the Year
+ Most Tasteless Movie of the Year + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

Steve Carell resting his universally beloved face on a stack of pancakes on this poster for Peter Hedges' Dan in Real Life

 
Dan is a widower with three daughters. He is a family column writer, (we gather this curious profession only by and by during the course of the film), who has to take his girls to a small, Rhode Island cabin, where all of their enormous family gathers annually to spend inordinate amounts of time together. But during this stay Dan falls inexplicably in love with his brother's girlfriend, and here we go.

 

Dan in Real Life is written by Pierce Gardner (Lost Souls (2000)) and co-writer/director Peter Hedges (Pieces of April (2003)). 

For the love of God, avoid this movie! Don't watch it! Leave it be! Dan in Real Life is one of the most aggravating, insultingly bad movies I have ever seen.

I was lured to the film as it is a comedy with Steve Carell (The Office (2005-13), but boy was I disappointed. Even Carell's other really bad movie Evan Almighty (2007)) seems Oscar-worthy compared to Dan in Real Life.
You can tell just ten minutes into the film that it sucks and will suck to the end, and largely it is due to a terrible script. There's no smartness or surprises or actually funny scenes here, just clichés upon clichés and a really messed up ideal of family life. This ideal is shown in the cabin section of the movie, which is almost the entire film, in which the weird family is crammed together in a house to spend time together, playing football, dancing, singing songs for each other and eating and cooking. They are definitely invented as a version of a wholesome, close family by the writers, but somehow they come off as totally the opposite. Especially Dan's dimwitted brother, played by an awful Dane Cook (My Best Friend's Girl (2008)), is an odd character who is obsessed with showing and talking about his literally incredible love for his girlfriend.
One climax in the family's sickening family activities comes when, after two or three days together, they pamper Dan with advice on his love life, which they all apparently feel they need to tend to and save, (this takes place without much objection from Dan), and they set up a date for him with a woman they know from his childhood, presumably, whom they all refer to as 'pig-face'. They then go on to demean Dan with a happy-go-lucky song, - piano, patriarch, kids-and-all included, - about 'pig-face Ruth'. Bear in mind that this isn't served with any dark-humored sarcasm, but as straight-up romcom, normal family behavior.
Juliette Binoche (Three Colours: Blue (1993)) plays the oh-so-lovely infatuation, Dan's brother's girlfriend - with an unexplained, heavy French accent, - and I lost much for her by seeing her in this movie. In some shots, it seemed to me that you can actually see her suffering through it as well. (Take a look at her in the still below and you decide.) While Binoche loses integrity from her participation, Carell hurts to watch here.

Two more normally good actors are trapped in the painfully bad Dan in Real Life: Dianne Wiest (Edward Scissorhands (1990)) and John Mahoney (Frasier (1993-04)). Wiest plays the naggy mother 'character', while Mahoney mostly stands around putting his hands down into different jars and/or looks close to dying. Many times I wished that all the other characters would just vanish, and the rest of the film would only be about Mahoney. Needless to say, that never happened. Instead you go through the film wondering who is who in the ever-enlarging, faceless crowd of a family that walk around the background.

Dan in Real Life also, of course, has a sappy, sentimental ending, acoustic guitar to tap into an indie-feel audience in an awful singing scene with Cook and Carell - as well as seemingly endless shots in a bowling alley romance. And a completely unbelievable job interview scene that also somehow involves Dan's hellish family. And Carell - once again - playing a 'good' dad, who is simultaneously a total Nazi to his almost grown daughter, whom he doesn't allow having an innocent romance with the sweetest kid, you have probably ever seen. This boy, played by Felipe Dieppa (The Great Fight (2011) is probably the best thing in the film.
Dan in Real Life talks down to you from a vantage point of zero intelligence or originality.
The only reason it still gets a single heart here, is because it is not 100 % technically inept, (light, sound and photography is mostly okay), while the story, however, is simply beyond awful.

Related posts:

 

Peter Hedges: The 2000s in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: 25 mil. $
Box office: 68.4 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.73 times its cost)

[Dan in Real Life was released 26 October (North America) and runs 98 minutes. Binoche was paid 800k $ for her performance in the film. Shooting took place from October - December 2006 in Rhode Island, New Jersey and in New York. The film opened #2, behind fellow new release Saw IV, to an 11.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent 2 more weekends in the top 5 (#4-#5), grossing 47.6 mil. $ (69.6 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 3.1 mil. $ (4.5 %) and Spain with 2.7 mil. $ (3.9 %). Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to 3 notches over this one. Hedges returned with The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012). Carell returned in Stories USA (2007). Dan in Real Life is fresh at 63 % at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Dan in Real Life?