Synopsis:

Carell plays Dan, an advice column writer who is also a single father of three girls.  Dan packs up his daughters and heads away for the weekend to an annual family retreat.  Dan has been single for four years and meeting women just isn't his thing.  His first morning on the retreat, he meets a beautiful woman named Annie (played by Juliette Binoche).  Dan & Annie hit it off, but their chance encounter fades as Annie has to be going.  Little is Dan to know, but Annie turns out to be heading to Dan's retreat as well, since she is the girlfriend of Dan's brother (Dane Cook).  The film follows Dan through the heartache of finding the right girl, only to see she is with someone else.

The Freak's Rating: B- : As most people in America are, I am a fan of The Office.  I've been a fan of Steve Carell since he was on The Daily Show as perhaps the best news correspondent ever on television.  I try to completely distance myself from everything when I start a movie.  After a stern warning from Lori, I made sure I did so with Dan In Real Life.

Dan In Real Life is heartbreakingly honest in many moments.  Carell is good at making you feel his pain.  He pulls off this dramatic role just as well as he did in Little Miss Sunshine.  Dane Cook is adequate as Dan's brother, Binoche is good and the remainder of the cast holds up their end of the bargain as well.  The serious, and I mean SERIOUS let down is the writing, specifically the ending of the film.  This movie was an A for me all the way until the last 10 minutes.  If you've ever heard the term "tacked on" or "canned" as a way to describe the ending to a film, but never quite understood the terminology, here is your lesson.  Wonderful character development, constant mood and intelligent direction are on display.  The audience is led to believe a certain world exists and for a moment (an hour and a half or so) we believe it.  We become involved in characters that seem genuine and even enjoy the writing.  The film usually has us thinking things like, "this is different than other movies in this genre".  We are led through a story, eager to see what this unique film will present to us as a conclusion.  Then it comes and is just like every other film in the genre.  This could have really won me over with a clever ending, instead it was very canned.  For the ending alone, my rating dips to the bottom of a recommendation.  It is still entertaining and clever, but the ending is unforgivable.

Jennifer M's Rating: A : It has been quite a while since I've seen this movie, so I am going to have to watch this again.  I don't remember being disappointed with the ending.  Based on my initial viewing I would highly recommend the movie and found it very enjoyable.  I love seeing actors known for comedic roles in dramatic performances.  Steve C is excellent!

Angie's Rating: C : My favorite character in the movie was Annie.  I didn't really connect well with "Dan" maybe it's because he was so depressed all of the time.  I thought it was a pretty good picture of what a single dad would be... not sugar coated, but come on.  I was expecting some more clever dialog, or a break in the clouds.  I thought it was ok.  I do agree with Scott and Jen.  The ending was like they totally ran out of time and or budget to write a decent ending.  I guess that is where I was most disappointed.  The "break in the clouds" could have been the ending, but it just wasn't for me.  With a better ending I would have given this movie a B. 
 

Jen's Rating: B+ : Well I completely agree with Scott.  The ending is so disappointing.  The entire movie is excellent.  I fell in love with the characters and even got butterflies a few times because I felt so connected.  Not that I think what happened at the end is disappointing it's just how they did it that annoyed me.  It's seems as if they took their time and were very patient in making 90% of the movie and then something came up and they needed to wrap it up quick.  Anyway, it's hard to give it a bad rating because I laughed several times and really enjoyed the unique story.  Steve is wonderful!  Honestly the ending might not bother some so I for sure recommend this movie.

Lori's Rating: C : I was expecting a dry funny movie from Steve Corell.  It was sad, slow and only slightly funny.  I was disappointed in this movie overall.  It got it's point across of what life can be like for a single, widowed dad, but not what I was expecting from such a well known funny man.

Brian's Rating: C : I am not a big fan of romantic comedies.  I still see them from time to time, and every once in awhile I hit on one I actually like.  Going into watching this movie, I only vaguely remembered Scott's review, and the bottom line that he did not like it all that much.  So I was completely surprised to find that I was thoroughly enjoying this movie.

The humor was fresh, and circumstantial.  I find myself laughing a whole lot more with circumstantial humor rather than contrived funny scenes and one-liners.  This movie had a couple of these, but for the most part the humor was built into the undertone of the characters and the situation that was unfolding.  I was smiling often, and laughing openly at regular intervals.

Along with that, the romance part of this comedy was blended in very well to the story.  Often in romantic comedies either the comedy, or the romance seems forced into the writing.  I was pleasantly surprised to find actual good writing in this script.

A third point of this film I enjoyed was that of Steve Carell.  Until now, I had only seen him in the Daily Show--like Scott, I think he was awesome in that role--and the hit sit-com "The Office".  Both are similar character types, and he pulls them off well.  I was completely surprised to find that he also did a great job of adapting to the role of a somewhat shy, quiet, and recovering widowed dad.

Finally, I was enjoying this film because it actually presented some originality.  I have the same knock on most romantic comedies as I do with procedural television shows.  That is that they follow a strict canned formula.  Its almost as if there is a repository of Mad-Lib scripts that the writers dig out and fill in the blanks for very predictable writing gimmicks.  This movie was breaking from the Mad Lib and actually presenting a provocative story.

I was all set to give this film a B+ (about as high as you'll ever see me rate a romantic comedy), and then those last 10 minutes that Scott mentions in his review hit you in the gut like a bad joke.  After watching the movie, I went back and read Scott's review and I completely agree with him on everything he says.  This movie smacks of Hollywood executives getting their muddy little fingers on the script and forcing those last 10 minutes down your throat.  Like "I am Legend", this is enough to completely ruin the film and everything it had going for it.  I refuse to believe the writers actually wanted that ending, it is completely asinine and forced.  It did about as good of a job of fitting into the rest of the script as if you would have thrown the ending of "The Godfather" in.  It makes me wonder if the creative writer behind this went home and shot himself in the head after realizing what this would do to his reputation.  I don't need to spoil it, its like Scott says, canned.  You could write it yourself, and probably do it better.  There are about 100 other directions they could have taken it and it would have been better than what what presented.

I cannot, in good faith, recommend this to anyone because it is not realistic to tell them to stop it 10 minutes before the end and write their own conclusion instead.  As it is, there is no alternate ending that I know of, and so anybody watching this will have the misfortune of seeing the completely deflating final 10 minutes.
 

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