Dan in Real Life film review

certificate_PG

DAN IN REAL LIFE

Dan in Real Life is the name of a newspaper advice column written by Dan Burns (Steve Carell). He's a middle-aged widower with three precocious young daughters who is well used to dishing out advice to others, but when a turning point happens in his life will he be able to follow his own rules?

Peter Hedges' film follows his 2003 release Pieces of April, which was one of the best films of its year and recounted a fractious family get together over Thanksgiving. There's a similar family reunion motif for Dan in Real Life, but the hard edge of the previous work is missing and is this time replaced by too many sugary indredients.

The films sees Dan falling for a lively Marie (Juliette Binoche) without realising that she is actually the new girlfriend of his brother (Dane Cook). This is all made clear at his family's annual get-together in an impossibly nice house on an impossibly nice lake, presided over by impossibly sweet parents (John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest).

The premise isn't a bad one: a little thin perhaps, but it does allow for some decent farcical moments thanks to the inevitable misunderstandings and mix-ups. But as a whole the film has too many false notes, characterisations that don't ring true and plot developments that don't make any sense.

It's passable stuff and will while away an hour and a half of the winter quite easily, but despite its talented cast, it lacks conviction to be a film that will stick in the memory.

Paul Hurley