Meals can be embarrassing free-for-alls or awkward moments of confession.

At some point, a game of touch football turns ugly.

There's at least one contest, males vs. females. Doing The New York Times crossword puzzle as teams would be a fair way to settle that.

And if you're really corny, maybe you squeeze in a family talent show.

'Twas always thus, from the Stone Age to "The Family Stone."

And yet, somehow, every single one of those clichés pays off in "Dan in Real Life," this fall's "Family Stone"/"Home for the Holidays" et al, a movie about one of those family get-togethers that only happen in a theater.

It stars Steve Carell as a mopey widowed father of three girls, author of a common-sense newspaper column, "Dan in Real Life." It was directed and co-written by Peter Hedges, whose heartfelt "Pieces of April," "About a Boy" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" tip us that however familiar this is, the sweetness will shine through.

Dan hasn't done much dating since his wife died. He's a bit over-protective of the other girls in his life. He won't let Jan (Alison Pill) drive, even though she has her license. He does his best to keep hormonal 15-year-old Cara (Brittany Robertson, hysterical) in check. And what parenting he has left is simply tolerated by his angelic fourth-grader, Lily (Marlene Lawston).

Enter Marie. Played at a dizzy pitch by Juliette Binoche, an actress not known for goofy, she is a wordly, free-spirited delight. They "meet cute" in an old bookstore. She mistakes him for an employee, he offers her reading material to help her cope. They have coffee, and he blurts out his life and still gets her number.

And then he goes back to the family, ready to tell them that lightning has finally struck. Except she's the woman brother Mitch (Cook) has brought to this get-together.

Whoopsie.

The rest of the movie is Dan trying to do what any lovesick man, or thinking, caring moviegoer would do - keep Juliette Binoche from the clutches of Dane Cook. Their little connection is a secret. That means that Dan and Marie have to keep their hearts in check, their jealousies, too. And in a crowded house, that's not easy.

A too-funny, too-sexy Emily Blunt ("Jane Austen Book Club") shows up as a blind date for Dan. There are confrontations over the grief Dan still carries, and the boy Cara is determined to get carried away with. Marie grows more alluring and more stricken at their chemistry by the minute.

The dialogue features a few zingers, some from Cara.

"You don't even understand that you don't understand."

Mostly, though, this is an actor's feast, and if it works, it's in the way Binoche hurls herself into the family jazzercise/boxercise class; the way Carell makes Dan's efforts at sabotaging his brother's love affair seem accidental. Cook, the stand-up with a film career littered with "Employee of the Month"/"Good Luck Chuck" flops, is almost charming here.

Hedges recycles plots and clichés from other movies of this ilk ably, and even revives a little accidental confessional sing-along bit he used in "About a Boy."

No matter. The heart is there, and the message - not from Dan, but from the mouths of babes - still gets you.

"Love is not a feeling. It's an ability."