Dan in Real Life
April 2008 Reviewed by: Doug Blackburn Format: Blu-ray	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Dan in Real Life is most certainly not the kind of movie that wins Oscars, but it is the kind of movie that becomes a classic, with a following that lasts for many decades. It's a sweet movie, but it’s not overdone. It avoids the annoying and clichéd Tinseltown treatment and sticks with the relatively real-world sensibilities of director/co-writer Peter Hedges (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, novel and screenplay; Pieces of April writer/director). Dan (Steve Carell), a newspaper advice columnist and author, is raising three daughters alone and is having difficulty knowing how to manage his own life, in spite of the praise he gets for the advice in his column and book. Trying to do right by his daughters and be happy and fulfilled at the same time is an elusive ideal. He’s almost given up, but then things change. I’ll stop here in hopes you have the chance to see the movie without knowing too much in advance. It’s always nice to be surprised by a movie, and this one has that ability.

The video quality isn’t of reference grade, but the movie has an appealing look to it. It is very film-like, with a, presumably intentional, warm tone to everything, day and night. The warmth isn’t overdone, and it gives the movie a dreamy ambience. The MPEG-4/AVC transfer is very clean and noise-free. I found the overall video presentation surprisingly inviting and comfortable, like favorite sweats or slippers. The locations were very reminiscent of times I’ve spent on the Northeastern Shore; some locations and buildings looked amazingly familiar. I found the whole movie visually seductive in spite of the inviting but unspectacular nature of the images.

The sound is dominated by Sondre Lerche’s dreamy, meandering, delightful soundtrack music, which blends perfectly with the story and onscreen action. There’s nothing here that would challenge the typical home-theater system. Nothing sounds special, yet everything sounds right. The music is almost always present, but it never dominates, nor does it even direct your attention to it. The end result is visual seduction combined with the aural seduction of the soundtrack, keeping you floating along in movie dreamland, enjoying the pleasant story. The 48kHz/24-bit uncompressed soundtrack is obviously better than the Dolby Digital alternative -- in every possible way.

The director's commentary is pleasant and interesting enough to be enjoyable. The outtakes are a pleasant diversion, but not as laugh-out-loud funny as I thought they might be, considering the involvement of Carell and Cook. The deleted scenes were OK too, but really don’t bring a lot to the movie, though, interestingly, one of the deleted scenes has been running in commercials for the DVD and Blu-ray Disc, even though it’s not in the movie itself. "The Making of Dan in Real Life" is reminiscent of the lightness of the movie and makes a worthy companion piece, though it’s not going to urge repeat viewings. The feature covering the creation of the score was worth seeing, if for no reason other than seeing how a relatively unknown musician/songwriter from Norway ends up composing and performing most of the music in an American movie. The "One More?" feature is semi-hidden and consists of Steve Carell asking if he can have "one more" take at what he just did about 20 times. Scroll past the commentary to get to it.

Unfortunately, this disc ties with Ratatouille as one of Disney’s most annoying Blu-ray Discs ever. This particular disc has to go through a long Java load every time you access the main menu. That’s right -- every time. Want to go back to the main menu after you watch the movie? There’s going to be a couple of minutes delay while the main menu Java loads again. Why don’t the people who foist these annoyances on us ever get fired? Every other disc I’ve played manages, by some miracle, to only have to load Java one time as long as you don’t stop the disc.

Also, oddly, the Sharp Blu-ray player I use had no audio output after the Java load for the main menu, which meant no sound for the menu or movie. The coming-attraction trailers played fine, but they come before the Java load. Even updating the Sharp player’s firmware didn’t stop the no-audio problem. The Sony Blu-ray player I also have worked fine.

• Go Back