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Is "you look like your dad", or indeed any statement of looking like something in which the description is meant literally (unlike e.g. you look like hell), a simile?

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Well, if you look well at the definition of the simile, the answer to your question becomes evident. A simile is

a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as (as in cheeks like roses) (M-W)

Certainly, cheeks are not roses, it is their colour that is the feature they have in common with those particular flowers. Things are different in your example. The fact that two persons look alike, is a physical description between two beings or entities that are not unlike but alike. Therefore, it is not a simile.

fev
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  • well I agree, and agree you have shown it, but I don't think it's quite "evident" –  Nov 10 '21 at 09:39
  • but yeah I think the word 'literal' is useful there. my cheeks don't literally look like roses, because it's a figure of speech. I literally do look like my dad! even though we are not identical, our likeness is not rhetorical –  Nov 10 '21 at 09:48
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    'Literally' can be used for emphasis and metaphorically, be ware! My heart was literally bursting with joy does not mean that my heart is in pieces :) – fev Nov 10 '21 at 09:50
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    Yes - and by the same token, The handwriting on this ransom note is so bad I can't be sure what it says. But it looks like* they want £1000 for the safe return of my cat* isn't a simile either. Come to that, nor is *[It] looks like rain tomorrow*. – FumbleFingers Nov 10 '21 at 17:40