peter hedges Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In my review of Dan in Real Life on Friday, I mentioned what an excellent writer I find Peter Hedges to be. He wrote my favorite novel, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, as well as the screenplay for the Johnny Depp adaptation. He co-wrote About a Boy, and wrote and directed Pieces of April. All great stuff. Dan is the weakest of that lot, but still an entertaining film. It seems other people are fans of Hedges as well, he's just been signed to write and direct Everything Changes, an adaptation of the Jonathan Trapper book of the same name. Hedges was hired to adapt the book, and loved it so much he opted to direct as well.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story focuses on "a man on the verge of marrying the perfect girl when he undergoes a life crisis as he faces feelings for his recently deceased best friend's wife and also deals with the sudden arrival of his womanizing, estranged father." Did you follow all of that? The film will most likely star Tobey Maguire, who will also co-produce with Wendy Finerman (Forrest Gump). It will be good to see Maguire back in non-Spider-Man roles, his vicious performance in the otherwise limp The Good German reminded me how good he can be. Have any of you read Everything Changes? Thoughts?

As the end credits roll on Dan in Real Life, I imagine most people will have roughly the same reaction -- a smile and a shrug. You won't be angry at yourself for watching it, but you'll be hard pressed to remember the thing in two weeks. It's a relentlessly average movie, packed full of "nice" moments but lacking a single great one.

Steve Carell stars as Dan, a widowed advice columnist trying to be a good father to his three daughters, well played by Alison Pill, Marlene Lawston, and a very funny Brittany Robertson. A widowed man raising his three daughters is also the premise of the old sitcom Full House, and the comparison isn't far off. These daughters are fleshed out a bit more than the Olsen twins, but the relationship beats feel the same -- forced, cutesy, a little tired.

Dan and the girls go to visit their extended family in a lakeside Rhode Island cottage. Dan takes a trip to the local bookstore, and in a very Woody Allen-esque scene, he meets and develops a crush on a woman named Marie (Juliette Binoche). There's a "falling-for-each-other" montage that doesn't really convince, Dan gets her number, and heads home to brag about his new "hottie" and meet the girlfriend of his brother (Dane Cook). Surprise surprise -- his hottie and the girlfriend are one and the same -- Marie. Cue the laugh track.

Before production even began on Dan in Real Life -- the funny, heartfelt and sometimes heartbreaking tale of a lonely widower named Dan (Steve Carell) who falls in love with his brother's girlfriend Marie (Juliette Binoche) -- writer-director Peter Hedges set an ambitious goal: to have Dan's soundtrack do for the film what Cat Stevens' music did for Harold and Maude and Simon & Garfunkel's classic tuneage did for The Graduate. In other words, Hedges wanted to find one artist to lend a unique musical voice to Dan; he wanted the songs to be unforgettable and inextricably linked to the heartbeat of the film; AND he wanted the soundtrack to be mentioned in the same breath as some of the most revered soundtracks of all time. Sounds like a job for a seasoned, world-wise-yet-hopeful music legend -- perhaps a Springsteen or a Bono ... or a 25-year-old Norwegian singer-songwriter named Sondre Lerche. Though Lerche's brand of whimsical, romantic indie-rock has been quietly dazzling music diehards for years, he has yet to hit the mainstream -- but that could all change with this film. We talked with Lerche about playing guitar with Steve Carell, soothing Hedges on the film's set and making his big Hollywood debut.

Cinematical: How did you get involved with Dan in Real Life?

Sondre Lerche: Well, Peter [Hedges] had heard a couple of my songs and thought that my music had the right kind of sound and feel for the movie, and so he came to my apartment in New York and we talked about what he was trying to do. He wanted one musician to do all the music, and he wanted it to have a unique feel, like Harold and Maude. Then I played him a song that I had written a couple days before, and he loved it. So I read the script that Peter was in the process of rewriting and started attending auditions and rehearsals for the movie so I could get the mood right.

Cinematical: You were also on the set of the movie during filming. How was that? Care to share any anecdotes?

SL: Oh yeah, I was there as much as I could be -- whenever I was in town. I was there for the scene where the whole family puts on a talent show, and Steve Carell plays the guitar and sings 'Let My Love Open the Door.' I gave him some tips, showed him the best way to hold the guitar and stuff. That was very cool. And Peter also wanted me on the set in case things started going badly so that I could play some songs and calm him down [laughs].

Cinematical: Ha. And did you write the songs as the different scenes were being filmed, or did you wait until the end so you could see a finished product?

SL: I started working on them immediately. I actually wrote the first song a couple of days after I met with Peter. That was about a year and a half ago now.

Based only on the trailer for Steve Carell's next movie -- I think I'm already willing to forgive the guy for his participation in the amazing wretchedness that was Evan Almighty. Plus I'm of the opinion that there are very few comedic actors who are as funny as they are likable, and Steve Carell is an amazingly likable performer. Whether he's going extra-silly (Bruce Almighty), ultra-obtuse (The Office), or sweet-yet-fractured (Little Miss Sunshine), Carell's just an actor I love to root for. Plus he should have been nominated for The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

So when I sat down to check out the brand-new trailer for Touchstone's Disney's Dan in Real Life, I got a little excited. I know it's only a promotional clip, but this flick looks all sorts of fantastic. It's about a widower who makes a living as an advice columnist, but who falls in love with his brother's girlfriend after taking his three daughters to a family retreat in the Rhode Island woods. (At least that's what I got from the trailer!) Backing Carell up in this ensemble piece are Dane Cook, Juliette Binoche, Dianne Wiest, Emily Blunt and the always-awesome John Mahoney.

Plus the flick comes packing a rather solid pedigree: The director/co-writer is Peter Hedges, who directed Pieces of April, co-wrote About a Boy and penned the novel that became What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The film opens in limited release on October 12 and will expand to more theaters a week later. Between this flick, a new season of The Office and next year's Get Smart -- I'm sure that Evan Almighty will soon become little more than a distant (albeit very painful) memory.