Avis Metacritic

A nimble and supple and moving comedy.

Carell shows a whole new side to his talents.

As a director Hedges is smart enough to allow his actors to share the frame and interact and let the material breathe.

Provides Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche with comic roles that fit them like designer threads.

Deftly interlaces heart and humor in a witty, warm and well-observed comedy about the unexpected and inconvenient blooming of romance at the weekend gathering of an extended family.

Cook has as much depth as a coaster, so it's impossible under any circumstances to imagine Binoche falling in love with him. Her complicated, heartfelt performance is the reason to see the film: When she's around, she pierces the soothing gray nothingness with shafts of sunlight.

Dan in Real Life steals from that line in "Virgin" about Carell kinda looking like Luke Wilson, since here Carell is, after all, playing the Luke Wilson role from "The Family Stone."

All goes according to course, and that's exactly the problem with Dan in Real Life.

Beneath its aw-shucks, wants-to-be-liked exterior, this is a bankrupt motion picture. It's cloying, artificial, and not the least bit romantic.

Bad movies invariably stem from bad ideas, and the worst of the several rancid ideas packed inside of Dan in Real Life is that Steve Carell could be the new Alan Alda.