In theaters

DAN IN REAL LIFE, directed by Peter Hedges, written by Pierce Gardner and Hedges, 95 minutes, rated PG-13.

When it comes to the new romantic comedy “Dan in Real Life,” it’s probably best to ignore the “real life” part of the title. Just overlook it. Since real life doesn’t fit into the equation here, nobody should go to the film seeking it. The movie is too tidy for real life. It dusts life’s corners clean in ways that real life simply wouldn’t.

What does come through – and the reason the movie succeeds – is that it does a fine job understanding the human emotions and dilemmas of its central characters.

Chief among those characters are Dan Burns (Steve Carell), a newspaper columnist on the cusp of syndication who is adrift in the wake of his wife’s death; Dan’s three daughters (Alison Pill, Brittany Robertson, Marlene Lawston), a handful of teens and tweens growing up faster than Dan would like; and Marie (Juliette Binoche), the woman Dan falls in love with after they meet by chance at a bookstore.

She’s perfect for him – bright, radiant, sexy, disarming. Trouble is, as Dan soon finds out, Marie happens to be the new girlfriend of his philandering brother, Mitch (Dane Cook), who claims he never has found anyone as right for him as Marie.

And there you have it. Since Dan is the kind of guy who can’t help wearing his feelings on his face even though he wants his brother to be happy, the plot complications are revealed and, well, you can see where this is going, can’t you?

The film, which director Peter Hedges based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Pierce Gardner, takes this situation and these characters and places them in the hell of a large family retreat in Rhode Island. There, on the shores of the Atlantic, Dan’s mother (Dianne Wiest), father (John Mahoney), siblings and their families converge for the sort of choreographed, chaotic time families tend to enjoy in the movies.

In this way, the film recalls Hedges’ last movie, “Pieces of April,” which was set during Thanksgiving, a time when Hollywood’s most dysfunctional families come together to carve the turkey and, you expect, each other’s throats. That film was slight and quirky, filled with just enough familial woes to make it interesting even though it occasionally fell short of expectations.

More often than not, “Dan in Real Life” rises above them. A good reason for that is Carell, star of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and NBC’s “The Office,” whose performance brings to mind his turn in “Little Miss Sunshine,” in which he was the glummest member of the group. That’s also true here, with Carell once again proving he’s equally good as a comedian and as a dramatist.

The chemistry he shares with Binoche is the movie at its best. Though their pairing seems unlikely on paper, what matters is how they make it work onscreen. Each comes to their roles with the sense that in middle age, life has taken away plenty from them, but might be ready to offer a whole lot back. It’s how they get there – or, better put, whether they dare to take the risks to get there -that makes the movie satisfying and allows it to resonate through an otherwise formulaic script.

Grade: B

On DVD

HOLLOW MAN: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT, DVD, Blu-ray, rated R.

Never mind the characters. The first thing to disappear in Paul Verhoeven’s 2000 film “Hollow Man” is the movie’s interest in its premise, which vanishes thanks to a script more interested in gore and horror movie cliches than in exploring the tantalizing prospects of becoming invisible. Fine special effects abound, but those effects are undermined by unremarkable characters and ridiculous exchanges of dialogue (“Let me ask you another question,” says one character. “Is it about who’s going to be on top?” answers the other). Kevin Bacon is Sebastian Caine, an arrogant scientist who, along with a team of other scientists (Elisabeth Shue, Josh Brolin, Kim Dickens, Greg Grunberg, Mary Jo Randle), has discovered a formula for making people invisible. After injecting himself with the formula, Caine disappears, but instead of exploring the moral ramifications of what it means for mankind to have the power of invisibility, the film takes the easy way out. To serve the box office, it sends Caine on a cliched killing spree.

Grade: C-

SCRUBS: COMPLETE SIXTH SEASON

Smart, well-balanced lunacy with an undercurrent of romantic and dramatic tension that cuts through the laughs. In the halls of Sacred Heart Hospital, where the series takes place, the joke is that nothing is as sacred as it should be. Everything here is free to be lampooned – hypochondriacs, love, cancer, you name it – but the writers know that there are consequences to such behavior, and they deliver the fallout. That is particularly true in this season, which features the unexpected death of a well-known character. What’s admirable about the show is that it consistently is trying for something new, and while it doesn’t always succeed in its leaps of faith, it does try (such as in the well-done episode performed as a musical), which on television is becoming something of a rarity. With Zach Braff, Donald Faison and Sarah Chalke, the characters and the show play like a bizarro version of “ER.” It courts the genre, appreciates its elements, and then turns all of it on its side.

Grade: B+

THAT ’70S SHOW: SEASON SEVEN

We’re back in Wisconsin, and the kids (Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher, Laura Prepon, Wilmer Valderrama, Mila Kunis, Danny Masterson) are more restless than ever. So restless, in fact, that in this seventh season of the show, two leave the series with movie careers in mind – Grace’s Eric, Kutcher’s Kelso. The highlights – or the lowlights, depending on whether you’re a fan of the series and the era – include Hyde meeting his biological father in “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Til the Next Goodbye,” which mines real emotion when Eric departs the series for good. In the end, “That ’70s Show” always has been a crude, simple parody of an era, but one that’s more entertaining than some will expect.

Grade: B

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays, Fridays and weekends in Lifestyle, as well as on bangordailynews.com. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.