Romantic comedy with an awkward family focus (7/10)

Dan Burns: What don’t I understand, Cara? Please, help me out. What is it? Is it frustrating that you can’t be with this person? That there’s something keeping you apart? That there’s something about this person that you can connect with? And whenever you’re near this person, you don’t know what to say, and you say everything that’s in your mind and in your heart, and you know that if you could just be together, that this person would help you become the best possible version of yourself?

Steve Carell is fast becoming a Hollywood go-to guy, especially for (sort of) original comedies: The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Evan Almighty, and Get Smart.  But in less-comedic ‘real life’ roles as well, such as the suicidal, homosexual scholar brother-in-law in Little Miss Sunshine and now this romantic comedy, Dan in Real Life, which starts out with a considerable patch of pathos.  As in Sleepless in Seattle, the leading fellow must persevere with children following the death of the wife and mother everyone loves and misses desperately. Continue reading →