I am a huge Steve Carell fan. Have been since the Daily Show and will most likely be that way for years to come. Mind you that not everything he touches is gold. While he was amazing in 40 year Old Virgin as the lead, his best roles are those of a supporting type like in Little Miss Sunshine and Anchorman. Then comes Dan in Real Life.
Carell plays Dan, a soon to be syndicated writer of an advice column entitled, you guessed it....Dan in Real Life. He lives a real life with real problems and real phobias. However, his real problems are his three daughters that sometimes treat him like dirt and his never ending mourning of his long gone wife.
Dan takes his daughters to Rhode Island to have a family reunion and assist in closing the beach house of his parents for the winter. While there, he walks into a book store and into the life of a major love intrest Marie. They have an intense although short affair and arrives home to only find out that the new woman in his life is actually the new love intrest of his brother, played by Dane Cook. Soon the weekend becomes less about moving on and becoming closer to his children and more about avoiding conflict with his brother and avoiding falling in love with Marie.
What makes this film tick and flow is the constant conflict with both his past and his future. Dan has trouble relating to his kids and has trouble relating to anyone that may love him like he and his former wife loved each other. At the core, Dan is a true sad sack. He denies himself pleasure at the sake of living in his own misery. When he is presented to cut his brother out of the picture and pursue a woman that has the same emotions and affections for him, he denies that, rather living in mourning and such.
This film was good. Carell puts up a fantastic acting job equal to that of his role in Little Miss Sunshine. While I felt that his character was too 2 dimensional and lacked reality at times, it was still a pleasure to see him wallow a little. His distant relationship with his daughters was too fake and cliché.