Dan in Real Life (DVD)

From it's ad campaign revolving around the image of "Hollywood's leading funnyman" Steve Carell lying down in a stack of pancakes to the inclusion of Dane Cook, the only person besides Jay Leno who threatens to make me ashamed to be from Boston, Dan in Real Life seemed determined to make me hate it. Having now made it through an essentially numbing viewing, however, I can somewhat positively say I have very few feelings for it at all.

Focusing on Carell as the titular Dan, Dan in Real Life focuses on a widower advice columnist with three daughters. As is often the case in this type of film, the columnist seems to be able to get everybody's life together except his own. The movie picks up as he and his daughters head over to a cabin somewhere in New England for a family reunion. Dan meets a cute, vaguely mysterious woman (a slumming Juliette Binoche) at a book store, and within a few hours, decides she's his soul mate. The only complication is... Dan has unknowingly fallen for his brother's (Dane Cook) girlfriend! The sentence I just typed is more complex, and packed with more excitement than the entire movie. It unfolds exactly as you would imagine it to, and to further describe the simple, entertaining enough plot would be giving it far more credit than it actually deserves.

The only thing that I can truly hold against Dan in Real Life is Cook's absolutely dreadful performance. His irksome, juvenile stand-up persona has more than established his comedic inadequacies, and he does no better in film. Cook relies on nothing more than his ability to be loud and obnoxious to generate laughs, and is the type of actor who thinks the occasional mumble creates a serious performance. It doesn't. He single-handedly makes the movie much, much worse than it has to be. I wish he would just go away.

As you would expect, the special features are all rubbish. Some featurettes and deleted scenes were so bad they made me hate life. As for the commentary by writer/director Peter Hedges; I don't even want to go there. Suffice it say, if not even No Country for Old Men can get a commentary, neither should Dan in Real Life.

Dan in Real Life is a more or less harmless movie that, while certainly not good, is relatively painless to sit through. Despite the major deterrent of Dane Cook, it's an easy movie to endure, but a difficult one to like.