There are many likable things in “Dan in Real Life,” but the movie hits some kind of high when its gang of weekend vacationers take the name of a peripheral character (which just happens to be Ruthie “Pigface” Draper) and make sport of it with music.
I haven’t seen a song sequence this relaxed since the cowpokes sat around the jailhouse with a guitar in “Rio Bravo.” The moment, which feels partly improvised, is typical of the good feeling roused by this shaggy, amiable movie.
The family get-together weekend is happening in Rhode Island, where the various members of the Burns tribe convene annually. Our focal point is Dan (Steve Carell), a newspaper columnist and sad-sack widower who brings his little daughters along for the trip.
In a charming scene, Dan goes to a bookstore and meets a woman (Juliette Binoche). In the course of a cup of coffee, he becomes convinced that he’s met his soulmate, even if she has to hurry away to join friends.
Skip this paragraph if you want to preserve a mild, early plot twist: The woman has actually hurried away to the Burns family getaway. She’s dating Dan’s younger brother (stand-up comic Dane Cook, from “Good Luck Chuck”). Does Dan keep his mouth shut and suffer, or does he make his move?
There are many other folks mixed in here, including family members I couldn’t quite keep straight. Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney are the parents, and Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz, “Gone Baby Gone” star Amy Ryan, and Jessica Hecht are also in there.
Cook and Butz — now there’s a vaudeville team — are the guys around the piano singing about “Pigface” Draper (who is played, by the way, by the gorgeous Emily Blunt, thus taking the sting out of her onetime nickname). The rest of the movie is easily handled by Steve Carell, who’s closer here to his depressive “Little Miss Sunshine” character than his fatuous “Office” persona.
“Dan in Real Life” is directed by Peter Hedges, whose previous film, “Pieces of April,” was a similarly warm comedy, laced with melancholy, about family. Actually, that family, struggling through a Thanksgiving, was also named Burns, so maybe Hedges is telling tales of the same tribe.
Whatever he’s doing, it’s working. This is a slow-simmering movie, and at times it settles for sitcom laughs. But by the end, you’ll be pleasantly settled in for the weekend, ready for pancakes and board games.
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