Misanthropic children's book author Henry Roth (Billy Crudup) has reached a breaking point, but never seems to actually break: He’s borderline OCD-afflicted, barely able to forge relationships and generally ill-equipped to do much but perpetuate the vicious cycle inside his head (case in point: at a book signing, he tells his kiddie fans that Santa doesn’t exist).
When he’s thrown together on a project with equally unsettled illustrator Lucy Reilly (Mandy Moore) the collaboration applies pressure in all the wrong (and right) places.
Dedication, the directorial debut from Justin Theroux (better known as an actor in films like Broken English and Strangers With Candy), has the dark heart of offbeat romances like Garden State, and we’d welcome it at the multiplex even without its cavalcade of supporting names (Dianne Wiest, Tom Wilkinson, Amy Sedaris, Peter Bogdanovich, Harvey Keitel, Mia Farrow -- basically, the entire Weinstein Rolodex). Opens August 24.
written on Friday Aug 17, 2007
misanthrope,
romance,
movie.
