I like to review films with all the fairness I can muster both as a critic and a fan, taking on each movie -- no matter how lame -- with at least some semblance of hope. However, regarding Dan in Real Life, you'll be hearing more from the latter fella than the former. My critic persona is currently lying bruised in a ditch outside of Minneapolis.  

After slogging his way through Evan Almighty this past summer, Steve Carell continues his cinematic losing streak with this hamfisted dramedy. Carell plays Dan Burns, a popular advice columnist who's had a mighty hard time raising his three daughters during the four years following his wife's death. Luckily, the time has come for Dan to pack up his brood and head out for a beachfront get-together with the rest of the Burns clan, including his ladies man brother Mitch (Dane Cook) and concerned parents (John Mahoney and Dianne Wiest). Dan's world gets a bit brighter when he runs into a beauty named Marie (Juliette Binoche) at a bookstore and virtually falls head over heels in love after a few moments of chit-chat -- until he returns home to find that she's Mitch's new girlfriend. Although Dan's hands are already full with a trio of kids who all want a little breathing room, his  affection for Marie has him torn between letting sleeping dogs lie and doing something to better himself for once.

It's ironic that Dan in Real Life is titled as such, because a story this soapy could only exist in Hollywood. It may be meant to be a bastion of realism, but this movie often reaches a point beyond the ridiculous. Although ripe with the potential to deliver some hard-hitting and emotional family interactions, the film offers constant distractions such as random exercises in the front yard, crossword puzzle competitions, and, in a scene more ghastly than anything Saw IV dished out, a family talent show. Dan in Real Life has virtually all competitors beat when it comes to stockpiling cheap sequences like these to project a phony-baloney aura of happiness on the silver screen.

Even if you shove the problems mentioned above to the side, Dan in Real Life comes across as a misfired slice of seriocomedy, albeit one probably made with the best of intentions. As always, Carell remains an intensely likable performer who struggles like a champ to earn the audience's sympathy despite plot contrivances exploding around him like depth charges. His role here resembles more of the wounded character he played in Little Miss Sunshine than the lovable imbecile from Anchorman, and as in Evan Almighty, a little of the guy's charm goes a long way toward making the movie a bit more tolerable. The lovely Binoche is an actress it's impossible to make look bad, so her beauty rises above a lousy script. But, alas, the romantic conflict stems from a wholly unconvincing "meet cute" scenario, and Cook adds little interest with his latest performance in a fascinatingly "meh" film career, while Dan's hypocritical daughters are veritable slaves to screenplay, acting as spiteful as can be one moment and being sugary-sweet whenever the story demands them to be happy. 

I'm not saying a tale like Dan in Real Life could never work, for look at all the other comedic dramas out there that've managed to balance laughs and life lessons just fine. But instead of solving its characters' various neuroses, Dan in Real Life inspires a set of new ones for its viewers. If Woody Allen had a grave, he'd be spinning in it right now.

MY RATING: * 1/2 (out of ****)

(Released by Touchstone Pictures and rated "PG-13" for some innuendo.)