Pan in Real Life

There seems to be a cynical sentiment in the world of film criticism that if a movie attempts to make its audience feel good, then that movie is somehow fraudulent and not worthy of your time. Further more, if said movie succeeds in making its audience feel good, then not only is the movie fraudulent, but the audience who enjoyed it simply doesn’t know what’s good for them.

The latest example of this strange phenomenon is the Steve Carell vehicle, Dan in Real Life. If I were to sum up the consensus amongst those film critics who didn’t like it, it would sound like this: “How dare a film try and make me laugh and warm my cold, robot heart?! I’m going to have to watch Saw IV to cleanse my palette!!!!!!”

(Notice how my composite film critic uses six exclamation points to show how exclamatory his/her statement is? What an asshole.)

Perched atop my favorite ledge, concealed by the shadows of a concrete gargoyle, I let my crosshairs roam, looking for the most deserving hater in need of popping, when I noticed a very interesting pattern—they’re all cribbing from the same hater-handbook.  

Geoff Berkshire of Metromix Chicago writes:

[Dane] Cook demonstrates yet another talent he doesn’t have when his character ‘sings’ Pete Townsend’s ‘Let My Love Open the Door.’ At least in this case he’s supposed to be bad.

So, while he admits that the character isn’t meant to sing well, he still uses the opportunity to grind his out-of-context axe.

Josh Bell of the Las Vegas Weekly also jumps into the fray, with his remark that “Cook is a failure at pretty much everything.”

Nick Schager of Slant Magazine also piles on by referencing “the casting of the reliably insufferable Cook—who, admittedly, is a tad less unbearable than usual…” While Schager eludes to the reality that Cook isn’t bad in this film (and, actually, he’s pretty good) he still paints his back-handed compliment with a negative hue.

But Sean Burns of the Philadelphia Weekly truly takes the cake, when he writes:

As Mitch is played by the odious Dane Cook, we must first take a moment to face the prospect of a universe so cruel, godless and unfair that Juliette Binoche would willingly spend more than 40 seconds in the presence of a loutish, noisy MySpace comedian who tells other people’s jokes.

Rather than talk about the movie in its own context, Burns (along with his hater cohorts) can’t help but shoehorn his unwarranted criticisms of Dane Cook’s career into his review, thereby demonstrating the most rampant symptom of bad film criticism—an acute inability to be unbiased.

Another peculiar similarity that popped up amongst the cold-hearted naysayers was an insistence on comparing Dan in Real Life with a far more inferior film.

Robert Wilonsky of the Village Voice (who most notably made an extended stay in Roger Ebert’s chair) writes:

One could fill this entire space with the titles of films from which writer-director Peter Hedges nicks his story, but for the sake of expediency, we'll narrow it down to a desert-island handful [including] The Family Stone.

The aforementioned Geoff Berkshire offers this:

The end result resembles a slightly warmer version of ‘The Family Stone’ with crossword puzzle contests, talent shows and group aerobics substituting for fleshed-out characters.

James Berardinelli of reelviews.net has this to say:

Dan in Real Life feels like a bad flashback to The Family Stone. However, where that one had some charm, wit, and genuine romantic impulses, this one has none of the above.

The Family Stone, if I’m not mistaken, was a comedy that didn’t work on account of its unfunny take on a dysfunctional family, while at the same time asking the audience to sympathize with an ice queen “protagonist” who had no redeemable qualities, aside from starring as Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City (whether or not that quality is actually redeemable is up for debate).

The truth is that the haters prefer a darker view of the archetypal eccentric America family, because it’s more “real” and that should tell you everything you need to know about the well from which they dip their critical buckets.

At least Chris Kaltenbach of the Baltimore Sun is upfront about it when he writes about the narrative conflict between the two main characters:

There's really no reason [the Carell and Binoche characters]…can't be upfront about their nascent relationship; in fact, they could simply tell everyone about their entirely innocent meeting and laugh it off. Or they could not laugh it off and watch the tension grow—now that could have made for an entertaining dark comedy, watching the family unravel.

Maybe this criticider comes from a simpler place, but when did it become such a cinematic sin to spend an hour-and-a-half in a movie theater smiling?