Dan in Real Life - Steve Carrell possible SPOILERS

[Captain Craig]

The film actually has two characters whose presence should have assuaged your white guilt. One of Dan’s siblings (I don’t remember whether it was his brother Clay or his sister Amy) has an adopted daughter who is Asian. Remember her? And, of course, Dan’s daughter Cara has fallen in love with a Latino boy. Didn’t the film score any race points with you this way?

I have ZERO white guilt but thanks again for guessing. Asian girl who says nothing gets zero points. Latino boy had about 8 lines. Its not that the film needed to score minority points with me. Its that I felt the movie is a farce and a caricture of how Hollywood sees big family life.

So now it’s the "Hollywoodized" depiction of family life that annoys you? That is not what you said in your initial post. Do I have to quote you directly again? You said, "Watching this movie made me resent white people...and I'm white. It is the whitiest whitebread movie about successful, well off happy New Englanders."

Its not "now" the Hollywoodiezed depiction that is the problem. I just stated it different. Corporate Hollywood rarely gets family life right outside of their own inner circles. The writer of this screenplay wrote a very cliche version of this family. I imagine if he made them black he would've used equally bad cliches.

I have to wonder whether you were just as annoyed or put off by some of the white people in Blood Diamond. That film offers up large servings of white corruption and brutality. In Dan In Real Life, the whites that you find so offensive are merely successful, stable, warm-hearted and family-oriented folks. How awful.

Blood Diamond is a great film because it portrays things in a seemingly realistic state. Dan in Real Life and its characters do not come across as realistic. They come off as carictures of a Norman Rockwell painting. Its not that they are successful and relatively stable its that the presentation does not come off as believable, unlike Blood Diamond.

However I feel fine with my rating for Dan. Its not that I think Stone will be accurate of family life but I bet it'll at least be funny. I have a hunch of how Stone will play out and what might make it a more enjoyable movie based on your comments and my recall of it.

I still don’t understand why you’re giving Dan In Real Life any less than 4 stars. For cryin’ out loud, in one scene they all exercised to the song "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire (a black group, in case you didn't know). Be reasonable--that should have been worth one more star to any self-conscious liberal with white guilt and good taste in pop music.

I know about "September" but thanks. Why? Because its not funny. I laughed out loud ONCE. The scene where is eldest daughter comes into the bathroom and assumes Marie is taking a shower. His rolling out the window and falling off was the funny moment for me. Everything else got at best a muffled chuckle. Why? It was predictable. I stated I guessed 3 plot points 30 minutes into the film and their resolution

 

[JGordon]

While it may have been a very "cliched" version of a big family get together, it reminded me sooooooo much of my big family get togethers that I got misty-eyed. My dad's side of the family gets together every year for a week right after christmas. Everything from assembly-line dinners, kids tables, family games, sports in the yard, skits that everyone participates in, hide-and-go-seek, sleeping in uncomfortable laundry rooms and fold-outs, was absolutely identical to my family get togethers. It's also standard procedure for family members to bring their new significant others to this gathering, and let the whole family meet/judge them. For this one week everybody gets along, even if they may have issues with other family members. But everyone lets those things slide so that we can have one week of guilt-free fun.

Sure it may have been cliched, but it was very real to me. The only thing that was missing was the adults staying up drinking after all the kids are in bed.

That said, I thought the movie was okay at best. It did a great job of setting up a messy confrontation between Dan/Marie/Dan's brother/Dan's girls, but everything worked out so neat in the end that it felt like an easy cop-out.

 

[TGTheodore]

Sure it may have been cliched, but it was very real to me. The only thing that was missing was the adults staying up drinking after all the kids are in bed.

God, how true. We drove them all to drink!

--Ted