Carrell carries mediocre Dan in Real Life
In the popular television show The Office, Steve Carell’s character Michael Scott is notorious for perpetrating comedy that falls horribly flat. The same could be said of Carell’s new movie Dan in Real Life. This movie is more like a disheartening dramedy than a lighthearted comedy, despite the presence of genuine characters.
In Dan in Real Life, Carell stars as Dan Burns, an advice columnist and a single father with three girls. Dan’s three girls, 17-year-old Jane (Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen’s Alison Pill), 14-year-old Cara (Frank’s Brittany Robertson) and 9-year-old Lilly (Flightplan’s Marlene Lawston), all get into the father-daughter disagreements typical of their respective ages. So when the four go to a family get together, Dan goes to a bookstore to give his daughters some space. There, he meets Marie (Chocolat’s Juliette Binoche), and they subsequently fall for each other. But, surprise, Dan’s brother Mitch (Good Luck Chuck’s Dane Cook) is already dating Marie. The two keep their interest a secret and try to forget about each other until neither can hide it any longer. As Dan tries to avoid Marie, he finds himself becoming a hypocrite to his daughters. Dan has to find a way to win back his daughters and get the girl as well.
This plot has two major flaws. First, though one would think Dan’s job as a columnist would be essential in showing how different he is when it comes to his family, the movie barely makes any reference to it.
The second major flaw is the fact that everything in the world unrealistically works against Dan. It is impossible not to feel sorry for him, which is basically an easy tactic on the part of moviemakers to create a likeable character. He is a caring father that tries his best to be a good single dad, doing his daughters’ laundry and drawing smiley faces on bread while he makes their lunches. Yet throughout the entire movie, his kids shoot him down, his family gets angry with him and a series of unfortunate events keep happening to Dan that make the plot unrealistically fatalistic.
It is bad enough that Dan is a widower. It is bad enough that he falls for his brother’s girlfriend. He does not need to be the victim of a string of unlikely happenings that seem to be thrown in to the movie without a purpose. Does Dan really need to be pulled over by a cop twice for accidentally passing the stop sign because he is pining after Marie? Does he need to be stuck sleeping in the room with the loud, rickety dishwasher?
In spite of the mediocre plot, Carell makes the best of things with his performance. Carell uses his wide range of emotions to make Dan a pleasant and even funny character. Though the movie elicited few audible laughs, it definitely had its momentss— specifically, moments that remind the audience of The Office. When Carell retorts and laughs to the police officer who has pulled him over, one immediately thinks of Michael Scott.
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