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There is a piece of Pringle wedged under the "i" key on my laptop and it is driving me to distraction.
I will admit that I only watched Dan in Real Life out of the corner of my eye. I spent much of the movie reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cleolinda's hilarious reviews of the Twilight series. I'd started them on Friday and seeing as how I am confined to bed, weak with a cold (oh, woe is me) I decided to finish up reading them. What I did catch of the film, I found to be charming and adorable although I have severe issues with the film's overall theme.
Movies that involve some sort of couple swap, inevitably annoy me. I may be able to ignore it or handwave it, but it gives me a squick because cheating is SO NOT cool. Dan in Real Life doesn't so much delicately walk the fine line between cheating and flirting as it trod all over it. Dan and Marie are cheating emotionally and I find that that bothers me. Despite the fact that Dan's brother, Mitch, is played by Dane Cook, a fact that should allow Dan all sorts of lee-way, the very obvious way that Dan and Marie fall all over each other was disturbing. There was never really a case where they were kind of attracted but trying not to be, it was more of "oh, let's tease the crap out of each other even though we really shouldn't and let's do it in front of the whole family and pretend that they're stupid and aren't going to get it."
The moment where Dan sneaks off to meet Marie at the bowling alley TWO HOURS after she breaks up with Mitch was really the moment that crossed the line. What little sympathy I did have for them disappeared in that moment.
There's a certain amount of cruelty in that sort of behavior that I just don't find charming and there was never anything angst-y or tragic that might have made up for their bad behavior. I loved, for example, The Family Stone which included the same sort of partner swapping but somehow it worked for me there. The secondary plot with Diane Keaton may have lifted the film out of triteness, I don't know. But the acting in that film was superb and I LOVED it. There was also a greater sense of mismatched couples being appropriately paired in the end and that's not something you get the sense of by the end of Dan in Real Life. Binoche looked just as comfortable with Cook as she did with Carrell while Sarah Jessica Parker's character was SO waving the freak flag and only Luke Wilson could get her to fly it proudly.
My caveats aside, I enjoyed the film. There were quite a few places that made me laugh out loud: Dance Off!! OMG!! and I found Steve Carrell to be funny and subtle. Juliette Binoche was pretty darn adorable all the way up until she got jealous of Ruthie.
I will admit that I only watched Dan in Real Life out of the corner of my eye. I spent much of the movie reading
cleolinda's hilarious reviews of the Twilight series. I'd started them on Friday and seeing as how I am confined to bed, weak with a cold (oh, woe is me) I decided to finish up reading them. What I did catch of the film, I found to be charming and adorable although I have severe issues with the film's overall theme.Movies that involve some sort of couple swap, inevitably annoy me. I may be able to ignore it or handwave it, but it gives me a squick because cheating is SO NOT cool. Dan in Real Life doesn't so much delicately walk the fine line between cheating and flirting as it trod all over it. Dan and Marie are cheating emotionally and I find that that bothers me. Despite the fact that Dan's brother, Mitch, is played by Dane Cook, a fact that should allow Dan all sorts of lee-way, the very obvious way that Dan and Marie fall all over each other was disturbing. There was never really a case where they were kind of attracted but trying not to be, it was more of "oh, let's tease the crap out of each other even though we really shouldn't and let's do it in front of the whole family and pretend that they're stupid and aren't going to get it."
The moment where Dan sneaks off to meet Marie at the bowling alley TWO HOURS after she breaks up with Mitch was really the moment that crossed the line. What little sympathy I did have for them disappeared in that moment.
There's a certain amount of cruelty in that sort of behavior that I just don't find charming and there was never anything angst-y or tragic that might have made up for their bad behavior. I loved, for example, The Family Stone which included the same sort of partner swapping but somehow it worked for me there. The secondary plot with Diane Keaton may have lifted the film out of triteness, I don't know. But the acting in that film was superb and I LOVED it. There was also a greater sense of mismatched couples being appropriately paired in the end and that's not something you get the sense of by the end of Dan in Real Life. Binoche looked just as comfortable with Cook as she did with Carrell while Sarah Jessica Parker's character was SO waving the freak flag and only Luke Wilson could get her to fly it proudly.
My caveats aside, I enjoyed the film. There were quite a few places that made me laugh out loud: Dance Off!! OMG!! and I found Steve Carrell to be funny and subtle. Juliette Binoche was pretty darn adorable all the way up until she got jealous of Ruthie.
