Dedication

Actor Justin Theroux’s directorial debut, Dedication, is the story of a successful storyteller who finds himself unable to do what he does after the unexpected death of his collaborator.

Younger but curmudgeonly Henry (Billy Crudup, a gifted actor who cannot hit a wrong note ever) and older but childlike Rudy (Tim Wilkinson, who can believably play anything from evil to avuncular) have been working together on books for years – Henry’s the words and Rudy’s the pictures.

Finally, one of their children’s stories, Marty The Beaver (inspired after the two view an, er, “art film” at their local revival theater), hits the big time. And Rudy dies. Now what? Hateful Henry doesn’t want to continue (he loathes kids anyway), but he is forced to the iron-clad publishing contract by his editor, Arthur (the incomparable Bob Balaban). A new illustrator must be found–the ultimately successful applicant, Lucy (Mandy Moore, quite excellent in her first truly adult role), is young, beautiful, sunny and upbeat.

Naturally, Henry despises her and refuses to work with her. Arthur secretly promises Lucy a $200,000 bonus if she can get Henry to write the sequel and deliver on time. How can she get Henry to like her enough to work with her and get the new book out in less than a month?

Dedication is kind of a romantic comedy, but it’s too acerbic to be romantic or comedic. The characters do have some layers, but they’re too clichéd in their neuroses to make you care about what happens to them. The dirt on the rock cake is an infinitely irritating, sappy soundtrack of vocal ballads laid over truly stomach-knotting montage scenes (falling in love, breaking up, and so on). What’s more, a self-indulgent running time keeps Dedication around so long past its welcome that you’ll be wishing you could skip ahead to the afterword well before the end credits roll.