Dan In Real Life

Superb. My kind of romantic comedy.

Steve Carell can do no wrong (well, Evan Almighty was kinda rubbish, but he was excellent in it). And pairing him with Juliette Binoche for a gentle, intelligent rom-com makes for the first movie highlight of 2008 (for me).

Although everyone seems to move slowly and talk slowly the movie really moves very fast indeed. In no time at all, we get to grips with who Dan is, who his kids are (and what his relationship is with each of them), why he is single and what the rest of his family are like. Even better, the film wastes no time in setting up the storyline. Carell meets Binoche at the start, they totally click and the film then creates an ingenious way to keep them apart. After that, we just sit back and watch Carell do his thing. And his "thing" is wonderful to behold. He makes you laugh and - more important - he makes you empathise. He wears his heart on his sleeve in his roles and - therefore - you really care about what happens to him. He can do no wrong (well, Evan Almighty was kinda rubbish, but he was excellent in it).

Peopled by a talented group of actors )who always seem to appear in rom-coms as the family of the hero/heroine!!), fuelled by a script rich in layers and symmetry, and punctuated by several comic highlights, this is a film to savour and reccommend.

"A+" from me.