Every year the Burns clan congregate for a get-together at their parental home in coastal Rhode Island for wine, food, fun and song. They’re as close-knit as their chunky sweaters.

With his wife dying four years earlier, it gives Dan a chance to let someone else look after his three daughters: savvy 17-year-old Jane (Pill), moody mid-teen Cara (the admirably stroppy Brittany Robertson) and little cutie Lilly (Marlene Lawston, Flightplan's vanishing tot).

On the first morning, Dan nips out for a paper and winds up bonding over books with a rather lovely stranger, Marie (Binoche). He's smitten before his coffee’s cold.

But just as Dan announces that he's met the woman of his dreams, his brother Mitch (Cook) introduces his latest lady-love… Surpri-i-ise! (Well, Marie did say she was in a relationship.)

Despite a few moments of Meet The Parents-style pratfalling – almost certainly shoehorned in for the trailer - farce is kept to a minimum.

The focus here is more on warmth than wackiness, allowing Carell to ease off the comedy accelerator as the font of family advice who comes to realise that he's not very good at practising what he preaches.

Elliott Noble