Dan in Real Life

Following the huge disappointment that was Wall-E (I know I'm going to be horribly unpopular because I didn't like it... that's a whole other blog entry), I was heartened when I got Dan In Real Life through Netflix. I wasn't biased because I'm a huge Office fan, and I think Steve Carrell is a talented actor. In this movie, he acted so much the opposite of Michael, almost to the point where you could feel what he was feeling. No, I didn't favor this movie because of the acting. I just really loved it for its sense of humanity. I don't know how the screenwriter did it, but they managed to make me feel like Dan was really meant to be with this girl who he had just met. They didn't make his brother (Dane Cook) an evil person, but you just felt like smooshing him anyway. You feel Dan's pain without a word coming out of his mouth. That's real writing-- when silence is bigger than words.
Not only is the movie funny, but all the characters have such real characteristics. His middle teenage daughter really thinks she's in love and she won't back down. His older daughter really wants to learn how to drive. His parents really want him to find a woman to get over the death of his wife. To write excellent characters, they almost have to be exaggerated versions of real people. If you want a character to be crazy, make them absolutely insane. If you want a person to be shy, make them like a tortoise. Somehow, it all comes out feeling so much more real and funny and emotional. This movie was funny without being stupid Steve Carrell funny. There's one point when he gets pulled over and says to the police officer "put it on my tab", and that's where I think a little of Michael from The Office comes out. I really wish the movie poster didn't look like this, because when I first saw it I was completely turned off by the movie. The poster makes it look like you're in for a 2 hour ride at the circus, but Dan In Real Life is such the opposite. In a way it's quite sad. You have to live through the pain that Dan lives with every day, and that makes the happy parts so much more happy. You're going through this dark tunnel and then something good happens very briefly. Then it's back down and Dan's depressed again, and you're right there with him.
Maybe what strikes me the most about this movie is how happy and united his family feels. It reminds me a lot of the Reimer's house in Arrowhead where all the family gets together and doesn't do anything work related. Everyone is there for the purpose of enjoying themselves and doing family things. Also, no one holds in what they really want to say. They lay everything out on the table. It's so nice to see a functional, happy, American family in the movies because it's so rare.
I loved this movie so much that I stayed up until midnight to watch the extra bonus features on the DVD. I saw the making of and the story behind the music. In "the making of", it talks about how the whole cast moved into this house off the coast of Maine where they filmed to just bond and get to know each other. They rehearsed, of course, but during that week they cooked and ate all their meals together, shared their rooms with one another, and became a real family. When it came time to shoot, Steve Carrell moved in and he immediately felt at home with the whole cast. The filming of this all looked so harmonious. They said that they had their long and tiring days, but that overall it was such a great experience to make.
In the story behind the music feature, they talk about the musician named Sondre Lerche who would come on set and play for the cast in between takes. The music will just blow you away with the simplicity. It's so spare and so real. This movie really is about real life without being boring at all. It's one of those stories about an instance that could have gone a completely different direction if the character had done just one thing differently. If Dan had come out with the fact that he was already in love with Juliette Binoche, the whole experience would have been different. No one would have gotten hurt and Dan wouldn't have had to go to court for all his speeding tickets. But then no characters would grow, and the movie wouldn't have been made would it?