Heading into this summer’s epic-scale spin-off of 2003’s $480 million worldwide hit Bruce Almighty, Steve Carell was the hottest comedy star of the moment, with both the reputation of a savvy scene-stealer and a hit, Emmy-winning television show in the form of The Office. With a rumored budget of somewhere between $170 and $200 million, Evan Almighty was probably the most expensive straight-up comedy of all time, so its near-unanimous critical lambasting and meager returns (it just finally eked past the $100 million threshold at the end of September) have to feel like a rebuke on some level, an adjustment of the scales of comedy.
Evan Almighty exudes the feel of a meticulously corporate-vetted tale from every pore of its narrative; it’s a movie so nakedly designed to radiate broad appeal that it ends up being a totally unfunny bore for all. Carell’s fall follow-up, Dan in Real Life, is an intimately sketched affair that makes far better use of his talents, namely presenting a sort of rumpled, Everyman proxy for the slings and arrows of indignity that come with normal, day-to-day existence. The curious thing, then, is the irritating manner in which this Disney movie is being sold as something far less quirky than it is.
An airy, autumnal, ensemble family dramedy — in the mold of movies like The Family Stone and Home for the Holidays — built chiefly around one beleaguered character, Dan in Real Life stars Carell as Dan Burns, a widowed New Jersey newspaper advice columnist with three daughters, two teenagers and a fourth grader. He’s an inherently decent and upstanding guy, but one having trouble realizing his girls are growing up.
One wouldn’t necessarily glean this from the movie’s trailer and TV ads, however. A few moments of spontaneous catharsis (Dan dancing in a bar) and resignation (Dan telling a cop to “put it on his tab” after getting nailed with a ticket) are played up for generic comedy, but the problem is that these moments, lifted considerably from their original context, simply aren’t very funny or uniquely memorable as presented. If Evan Almighty had delivered a star-making mandate, I could understand this sham-job, because Carell’s drawing power would be firmly, indisputably established. Assuming that fans of Evan (to the degree that there were any) and The 40-Year-Old Virgin already have cash in hand, however, wouldn’t the smarter play be something along the lines of trying to expand Dan‘s audience by actually selling the movie as what it is — namely, a relationship comedy with a touch of mania and a little bit of grey in its palette?
After packing up his girls and heading to his parents’ place for a nuclear family reunion of sorts, Dan finds welcome reception from mom and dad (John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest, ably functioning as human set dressing). He also enjoys a chance encounter at a bookstore with Marie (Juliette Binoche, coasting by on transatlantic charm), but is soon crestfallen to learn that she’s the new girlfriend of his younger brother Mitch (Dane Cook). Complications then ensue as Dan and Marie dance around one another, keeping their harmless encounter secret from the rest of the family.
As the adapter of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and About a Boy, writer-director Peter Hedges has a firmly established background in familial dysfunction, and his previous film behind the camera, 2003’s Pieces of April, dealt with a black sheep, wayward daughter (Katie Holmes) putting on a Thanksgiving dinner for her dying mother and estranged family. For better or worse, Dan in Real Life is much more well-adjusted than those movies, if also less crisply and intricately drawn; points are earned for giving Dan’s daughters distinct personalities, but no one else in the family makes an impression. The film’s emotions certainly come through, though; whereas Evan Almighty smacked of scrupulously constructed mock sincerity, Dan in Real Life has an easy, amiable charm, especially to its early scenes. One feels coddled and loved, even before the dance-along group fitness workouts and Kennedy-esque games of touch football begin in the backyard. (Costumes and production design from J. Crew, and achingly on-the-nose music from Norwegian singer Sondre Lerche, meanwhile, further inflate the sense of the film as an ample, welcoming bosom.)
The problem is that Dan, as a professional dispenser of advice, would in theory have some greater situational realization of his acting out, and/or control over his behavior. Here, he doesn’t, and it irrevocably sabotages the realism of certain scenes. There certainly is, on balance, more good here than bad. A bit more convincingly portrayed bitterness, though, would have made the movie’s laughs all sweeter in contrast. For the full, original review, from FilmStew, click here. (Disney/Buena Vista, PG-13, 95 minutes)