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If you're like me, you've been wondering for years when
somebody would finally make a movie where Steve Carell does not play a
blithering idiot. Don't get me wrong; The Office makes me laugh as
much as the next guy, but Carell has way too much talent too be stuck playing
roles that should be reserved for someone more Jim Carrey-esque (If you're like
me, you also hate Jim Carrey with a flaming passion. Except for The
Mask. That was funny. And The Truman Show.).
Yesterday I finally stopped wondering. Dan in Real Life is
easily and beyond a shadow of a doubt the best film I've seen in the past year,
and Carell's casting in the title role is the icing on the cake (If you're like
me, you indulge in the shameless use of idioms and cliches. It's the last one,
I promise.).
Carell is brilliantly cast by director Peter Hedges as Dan Burns, the
widower father of three girls, aged 9, 14, and 17. When four years after his
wife's death, Dan is still depressed and has found no one new, nor seems to be
looking, his mother advises him to take a drive to the docks during a family
reunion he is attending with his daughters, with the hope that he will benefit
from some space.
While at the docks, he meets a beautiful and intelligent woman named
Marie, and for the first time since his wife's death, he feels attracted to
someone. He talks with her over coffee for a while, and even manages to get her
number, despite her rather sudden departure upon receiving a phone call from
her boyfriend. However, he gets a nasty shock when he arrives back at his
parents' house where the reunion is being held, and discovers that his new
fantasy's love interest is none other than his younger brother Mitch. The rest
of the film chronicles the various awkward situations that befall Dan and Marie
over the course of the reunion.
Now, if you've seen any of the last thousand or so movies made
by Hollywood, you may find it difficult to believe
that this film was a studio production. I largely ruined the film for myself by
waiting for product placement to make its inevitable appearance, but it never
did. Dan in Real Life touched me in a way few films have in a very
long time. It's got a near-flawless script, excellent direction, and a perfect
cast, and together, this makes one hell of a movie.
It takes a lot for me to give a film five stars, but Dan in Real
Life qualifies. So see it. It'll be one of the best 95 minutes you've ever
spent in a theater, I can guarantee it. Dan's painful relationships with his
three daughters, further aggravated by his inability to stop thinking about
Marie, made me cry. And I haven't cried at a movie since I was 8 years old, so
I think it's an accurate assumption that there weren't many a dry eye in the
theater.
You know those movie ads in the paper that quote some reporter saying
a movie is "THE #1 MOVIE IN AMERICA!!!?" That label
needs to be on the poster for Dan in Real life, because it actually is
the best movie in America this year. This isn't an
opinion; this is a fact. This has been proven by
science.
Dan in Real Life is likely the best movie you
will have seen in the past few years, and probably for a year to come as well.
And so, ending on this happy note, I'd like to put forth my hope that this will
not be the last smart role for the genius that is Steve Carell.
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