Dan in Real Life **1/2

Dan is an advice guru who does not always practice what he preaches. "Home is not a restaurant, don't cater to your kids by making each their own meal," Dan advises a correspondent. Then he proceeds from computer to kitchen to make each of his three daughters a different lunch.

While the columnist may be a hypocrite about the small stuff, he observes the belief that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother. So much so that he hasn't looked at another woman since their mother passed away four years ago. The way his life is going, Dan's teenage daughters will be dating before he does.

Unexpectedly, in the stacks of a used bookstore, Dan (Steve Carell) meets Marie (Juliette Binoche), a lively brunette who stirs his long-hibernating heart. Turns out that Marie is spoken for - by Dan's own brother.

Dan in Real Life is a half-funny slapstick dramedy in the bipolar spirit of The Family Stone. Think thirtyish child bringing home new partner for appraisal and approval, inciting manic pratfalls by depressed siblings. I laughed some, cringed some more.

When his playboy brother Mitch (Dane Cook) arrives with Marie to the annual family reunion in Rhode Island, Dan crashes. When they're "introduced," Dan unsuccessfully hides his attraction for her.

The comedy springs from how the so-called relationship doctor won't observe his own commandments. Like the one about not coveting his brother's fiancée. And like all the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do wisdom he dispenses to his daughters.

Peter Hedges, whose feature debut Pieces of April was likewise about a fraught family reunion, directed and cowrote (with Pierce Gardner). Hedges genuinely likes his characters, however flawed, and doesn't vilify them.

But neither does he give the generic family-man brother and his playboy sibling much more in the way of characterization than that. Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney are Dan's parents, presiding over the most loving and least realistic clan this side of the Brady Bunch. (There is an upside to this: Dan may be the first live-action movie in ages to which grandparents can take their children and grandchildren.)

Generally speaking, the less Carell does, the funnier he is. He gets more comic mileage out of a frozen face than anyone since Buster Keaton. Here he plays Dan like a pressure cooker - steaming, spitting and about to blow - and the reverse is true. Carell's noisy, busy performance is more Wile E. Coyote than wily comedian.

Cook, whom I usually find irritating, uses that hoarse, grating voice to tender effect, which is improbably funny.

Almost reflexively, the filmmakers skirt Dan's messier conflicts. But it is the moments when they don't dance around the awkward issue of a brother falling for his brother's girl that Dan is the most poignant.

Produced by Jon Shestack, directed by Peter Hedges, written by Pierce Gardner and Peter Hedges. With Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Dianne Wiest, John Mahoney and Emily Blunt. Distributed by Touchstone Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 38 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (sexually suggestive dancing, profanity)

Showing at: area theatersEndText