"Dan In Real Life"

Steve Carell excels at the comedy of loneliness. He can play abrasive (his old Daily Show personality) and stupid (his retard savant in "Ron Burgundy," which is still the stupidest movie that everyone I know loved - everything about it, stupid, idiotic, dull, pandering comedy, except for the cameo by Vince Vaughn and everything Steve Carell says or does). But in "The Forty Year Old Virgin," in "The Office," and now, in the instantly underrated "Dan In Real Life," he excels at playing men who are quietly desperate for, and frightened of, other people.

Yes, Michael Scott on "The Office" is a loudmouth - almost a carbon copy, at first glance, of that earlier Daily Show personality. But there was a moment in the second season when the show moved past its status as a remake of the funniest show ever - the Halloween episode, which ended with Michael, alone in his big empty house, answering the door to give kids some candy. It was a rare moment of real quiet - as opposed to awkward, eye-rolling, stuttering quiet that the show turns into comic gold. That episode, coming so soon after "Virgin," sealed Carell's personality. It will always be hard not to like him.

"Dan in Real Life" was marketed terribly and will not make nearly as much money as it should, but it was cheap, and it will live on. It's the kind of movie you hope families will watch together. That's how I saw it - it was our Thanksgiving movie (it was that or "Into the Wild.") It's about a family reunion, and has a little bit in common with "The Family Stone," that terrifying mishmash of contrivance and emotion. "The Family Stone" packed a bunch of talented people with big names (Claire Danes, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Craig T. Nelson, Luke Wilson), and then wasted them. "Dan in Real Life" flips the equation - the extended family is full of unfamous character actors (Amy Ryan from "Gone Baby Gone," frequent "Friends" guest star Jessica Hecht,) and they've all got great material.

This is a rare kind of family movie where you feel as if you know everyone. The peak of the movie comes when Steve Carell and Dane Cook sing "Let My Love Open the Door," by Pete Townshend. Everything that has brought the film to this point sounds mawkish at best. Carell is a single father - he has brought his three precocious daughters to the annual family reunion - he misses his wife, goes to a local bookstore, meets a beautiful French woman who could probably only be played by Juliette Binoche - it turns out, surprise surprise, she's dating his rascal brother, Dane Cook - he loves her, he can't say anything, he loves his brother - and then, the family puts on its Talent Show. Has any family ever put on a talent show?

And Dane Cook wants to impress his girlfriend (who, we are quite sure now, has fallen for Carell - she reads his book, after all!) So he has his loving brother help him sing "Let My Love Open the Door." But Cook forgets the words, and Carell knows all of them. And they sing, and they both look straight at Binoche. And I would have been fine if the scene had gone on forever - if Carell and Cook, having reached the end of the song, kept on humming, invented new words, always returning to the chorus, which Carell whisper-sings in his little voice, almost on the edge of crying. The song ends - it has to - and there is a reverse shot on the entire family - there might be 20 of them, it's hard to count. And I realized, in the few seconds that shot held, that I felt like I knew every single one of these people. And I didn't want the movie to keep going, because it had to solve its romantic conundrum, and there was no way to solve it without becoming a movie movie as opposed to a slice of real life.

And the movie doesn't quite solve itself. The last scenes are the weakest - except for the penultimate scene, where Carell has to explain himself to his daughters, and to himself. Steve Carell for Best Actor, dude.