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Dan in Real Life
"Steve Carell's pursed-lipped awkwardness and sweet buffoonery are both in fine form in Dan in Real Life, but those endearing qualities aren't nearly enough to salvage Peter Hedges's incorrigibly hackneyed film," writes Nick Schager in Slant.
"Dan in Real Life is neither wildly farcical nor mockingly cruel, but rather, for the most part, winningly gentle and observant," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "Yes, there is the maudlin back story of Dan's widowhood, and the familiar scenario of all that quirky kin stuffed into one house for a few days. But Mr Hedges, a seasoned screenwriter, showed in his directing debut, Pieces of April, that he could infuse tired conventions of domestic comedy with fresh life and real intelligence. And here, working in a less self-consciously eccentric mode, he does it again".