Until now, Peter Hedges has been known for fairly offbeat fare. He wrote the screenplays for About a Boy and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and later on he wrote and directed the IFC-produced Pieces of April. Each of these, in their own way, seemed to revel in their own weirdness, happy to be gratifying to some and off-putting to the rest. This observation isn’t necessarily intended as praise—I like weird movies as much as the next critic, but being weird doesn’t necessarily make a film good. Still, you have to admire the artist who’s willing to try something new.

Enter Dan in Real Life, a very formulaic romantic comedy starring Steve Carell. This is a film that arguably tries nothing new at all, but then again, you could make the case that Hedges himself is trying something new here, as this is probably his first crowd-pleaser. In a sense, it’s a success, in that it’s able to take a slower, more ponderous approach than most commercial directors would to its plot (which—face it—we’ve all seen dozens of times before); but ultimately it’s nothing more than a fun and forgettable hour-and-a-half at the multiplex.

Steve Carell stars as the title character, a widowed family advice columnist with three daughters. Despite being alone for some four years, he’s still grieving over his wife, but he’s doing his best to move on. Spending a week at his parents’ cabin in a small Rhode Island town, he takes off alone one morning and meets Marie (Juliette Binoche), the first woman he’s been attracted to since the death of his wife. Upon returning to the cabin, however, he finds that she’s dating his brother Mitch (the somewhat underrated Dane Cook), and has come to stay for the week as well. Can we all see where this is going? Good.

So we’ve established that this isn’t something that hasn’t been tried before. That being said, it’s done pretty well here (certainly better than in The Wedding Planner, if nothing else). Steve Carell fails to disappoint as usual, playing Dan as a good-natured sad sack, proving (again) that he is just as much an actor as he is a comedian. There’s not really that much chemistry between him and Binoche, but they do all right. There are a number of fun incidents (including a well-done reuse of the old getting-caught-naked-in-front-of-the-person-you’re-secretly-in-love-with bit), and some genuinely funny dialogue.

The biggest success here is the film’s visual element. In Pieces of April, Hedges proved that he had a surprising amount of visual flair for a novelist-turned-screenwriter-turned-director, and here he proves it’s no fluke. Utilizing rich, warm tones, he perfectly captures the atmosphere of New England. There’s a warmth here—the deep wood tones throughout the cabin—but also a longing—the expanse of the ocean (on which the camera lingers just long enough). Dan often comes off as a bit too perfect to be real, but thanks to Hedge’s excellent framing, we have no trouble sympathizing with him.

The music in Dan in Real Life is excellent as well—a subtle and understated folk rock permeates the background, and the characters themselves often burst into song, with results that are generally better than I would have expected. There’s even a song improvised by Dane Cook halfway through, which makes for an excellent diversion. In the end, Dan in Real Life is fun simply because the people involved clearly had fun making it—which is often the best thing that can be said about a picture.

And if nothing else, it has a great title.