This is a perfect Romantic comedy, but there are a few problems with the it. First, the pros. The movie was well-acted, giving kudos to his daughters — all of them — who were extremely believable. If you have daughters then you know what I mean. You also have to give some credit to Dane Cook, who stuck it out though the character clearly was not him. He seemed very uncomfortable, wanting to either be mean or crack a good joke here or there. The script, and possibly the director, restricted him from breaking out. It just wasn’t a role that fit his personality. He tried it, made it through and it certainly had moments of working, but two-thirds of the film he didn’t seem like he was comfortable playing the brother role. As for Steve Carell, he plays a great father role. He was perfect and he was very believable as Dan. His character suffered perfectly and he played a wonderful father to those girls. So much, that you wold think he had daughters (no idea if he does).
So where does this movie fail? It does a great job with the setup. He’s a lonely guy who hasn’t completely gotten over the tragedy of losing his wife. He has a beautiful moment with Juliette Binoche, but as soon as Dan reaches his family’s house it goes downhill. The aforementioned Dane Cook character comment really put a damper on the believability of Juliette Binoche’s character being in love with Dan’s brother. And throughout the movie you just couldn’t find the reason why they were staying together. It was as if the script was forcing these two beings together for no good reason. And while that might have eventually panned out for the ending, it was uncomfortable to watch a story that didn’t quite do what it should have.
The other portion of the film that failed was there were just too many characters, none of which you got to know and they were confused with if they should sympathize with Dan or criticize him. This is incredibly bad because you are now giving the audience mix feelings to how they should respond to the moment. Should you support Dan and his plight? Should you support that he might be doing the wrong thing? The audience never has stable ground with the story, which doesn’t bode well.
All-in-all, the movie is par at best. I had a lot more hope for this film, mainly because the premise was much better in the trailer than it was in the movie.
Blu-ray and the features
First and foremost, the blu-ray is incredibly gorgeous. Presented in 1080p and coming to you in an enchanced 5.1 Dolby digital. It’s tough to write new material for Blu-ray, unless you have a bad looking Blu-ray, but regretfully I have only seen a handful that weren’t up to par. This is not one of them. With newer films you get more HD compatibility, especially when the films are shot in HD. Good stuff on ”Dan in Real Life”.
As for the features, here’s what you get on the Blu-ray:
— Deleted Scenes with commentary by Peter Hedges
— Real-Life Outtakes
— The Making of Dan in Real Life
— Audio Commentary with Peter Hedges
Not a very good variety of features, almost a waste of Blu-ray. Not the worst.
Dan’s real overall review
The movie had potential, I really wish it were better. The story should have been a bit more solid as well as the Blu-ray features. Rent it before you buy it.
Overall: 6.5