Directed by Peter Hedges
Written by Pierce Gardner and Peter Hedges

Cast
Steve Carrell as Dan Burns
Juliette Binoche as Marie
Dane Cook as Mitch Burns
Alison Pill as Jane Burns
Brittany Robertson as Cara Burns

Rated PG-13 for some innuendo

Some movies are great from top to bottom.  Some have so much greatness in them that certain mediocre elements are completely overshadowed.  And some movies contain a single element that is so great you don't really give two hoots about its' many problems and weaknesses.  Such is true of Steve Carrell's lead performance in Dan in Real Life, a sweetly well-intentioned romantic comedy that contains a laundry list of hypothetically grating elements.  Some I noticed but happily allowed to sail by while others only occur to me in retrospect.  But all of them are dwarfed by the former Produce Pete's sensationally accessibly performance as a middle-aged widower whose chance at happiness seems hopelessly blocked by his obligations to his large, loving, loud family.  I'd have loved watching Carrell give this performance in front of a green screen, and as a result, for him alone, Dan in Real Life is a great movie.

Dan Burns (Carrell) failed as a novelist, and now writes an advice column for a local newspaper that might be picked up for national syndication.  But he devotes most of his energy to his three daughters, budding driver Jane (Alison Pill), dating-too-soon Cara (Brittany Robertson), and cutsy little Lilly (Marlene Lawston).  He loads them into the family car and heads for his parents' house for an annual family get-together.  Nana (Dianne Wiest) and Poppy (John Mahoney) pack every day with their kids, their spouses and children with overcaffeinated activity, but sad Dan manages to find a little time to himself in town at a bookstore where he meets Marie (Juliette Binoche).  The sparks between them are immediate and undeniable and they end up spending a few hours together before she leaves, telling him she's seeing someone.  Dan returns to his parents' house just in time for his brother Mitch (Dane Cook) to introduce the family to his new girlfriend... Marie.  They try to deny the attraction, but it seems that every moment pushes them closer together.  Can Dan find any way to be a good father, son and brother and still be happy?

I often wonder about movie families like the Burns clan, with their dozens of frantic rituals including guys vs. girls crossword puzzle tournaments and family talent shows, and ask myself, is any family really like this?  Dan in Real Life has an odd quality of seeming like some middle-aged single orphan's vision of what Happiness would be like, right down to the way Marie is so utterly perfect she's actually a little annoying.  But I didn't mind because this goes with the flow of what Carrell is doing, projecting such an all-encompassing Good Solider loneliness that the faster and more overcranked everyone around him becomes, the more heartbreaking it is that he can't seem to keep up. 

In some ways it's more pivotal to the plot that we buy Dan's relationship with Mitch than the one with Marie, because it's the sense that there's absolutely no way for him to make his move that allows our hero to simmer so effectively.  Perhaps because I skipped Good Luck Chuck, I don't really get why so many people are down on Dean Cook, and I once again liked his work here.  He's really the only member of the Burns family I felt was worth the trouble Dan goes to to keep them happy.  The daughters are fine, but it's really only the question of whether Cara should be allowed to date the classmate she's fallen hard for that has the parental gravitas the movie attributes to the issues of all three. The Devil Wears Prada's Emily Blunt once again proves to be a scene stealer as an, uh, impassioned local girl Dan's parents try to set him up with.

But what matters here is Carrell, an actor who at times (I know The Office has plenty of fans, but I'm not one of them) plays the buffoon for buffoonery's sake but when he wants to, has reserves of depth and vulnerability that match anybody working today.  His Little Miss Sunshine performance was as good as any I saw last year, and his work here is right there with it.  Plus, Dan in Real Life has the benefit of putting him in every scene.  He's so good, it didn't matter if I didn't love Marie, only that Dan loved her; that his kids were ingrates, he loved them; in short, the engine that drives the movie is that Carrell's Dan Burns is so lovable yet so sad to the bone that I was happy to latch onto anything that might change that.  Mission accomplished.