Dan in Real Life

5 February 2015

Dan in Real Life 2007

• Director: Peter Hedges
• Based on novel: no
• Cast: Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Alison Pill, Britt Robertson, Marlene Lawston, Diane Wiest, John Mahoney, Emily Blunt
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Steve Carell  – Life’s Too Short, Little Miss Sunshine, Bruce Almighty
• Juliette Binoche – Breaking and Entering, Paris je t’aime, Caché, Chocolat, The English Patient, The Red Film, The White Film, The Blue Film, Wuthering Heights, Les amants du Pont-Neuf
• Alison Pill – Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Milk, Dear Wendy
• Diane Wiest – I Am Sam, Practical Magic, Edward Scissorhands, Footloose, Independence Day
• John Mahoney – Third Rock from the Sun, Reality Bites, Barton Fink, Moonstruck
• Emily Blunt – Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, The Young Victoria, Sunshine Cleaning, Jane Austin Book Club, My Summer of Love
• Why?  Juliette Binoche
• Seen:  January 31, 2015

Sometimes it’s fun to see a film about which one knows nothing. I bought this one because Binoche is in it.

The story: advice columnist/novelist Dan is a handsome widower with three daughters. He still grieves for his wife after four years. But then he chances to meet Marie and falls hard for her, only to discover that she’s his brother’s new girlfriend.

Complications, er, ensue.

The film is interesting, the acting is good, the scenery beautiful.

But I’m really allergic to stifling family sweetness in rustic New England luxury and to families where everyone plays charades and does workouts and plays football on the lawn looking over the ocean and they can all sing and play the piano and guitar and all that.

I like Juliette Binoche. Emily Blunt is always good and here she does an amusing totally non-young-Victoria vamp.

But I cringe throughout the whole film. All that family-knows-best wholesomeness and rebellious-but-loving teenagers and true-love-will-win-in-the-end is just too much.

2 ½ * of 5