Dedication

Rating R Formats DVD Genre comedy Starring Billy Crudup, Mandy Moore, Tom Wilkinson Directed by Justin Theroux Publisher Weinstein Company External Links Official Dedication Website

The film Dedication takes just that, dedication, to watch it and like it. I am in no means insulting director Justin Theroux efforts. He made a quirky yet very enjoyable film. Just make sure that you have all of your attention focused on the film because some things are hard to catch. If you do not heed my warning and try to multitask while viewing you will end up turning the movie off and turn full focus on the other task, or take a nap in my case. So just give chilling out and doing only one thing a chance and this movie will be far from a waste of time.

Mandy Moore and Billy Crudup star in this off beat romantic comedy. Billy Crudup plays Henry Roth, a very successful and very idiosyncratic man who writes children’s books. His long time friend, Rudy Holt, who illustrates and collaborates with him dies, leaving Roth lonely and in need of a new partner. Being a rather troubled man he is difficult to work with. Mandy Moore who plays Lucy Reilly is a struggling illustrator with a slightly afflicted past of her own who reluctantly teams up with Roth. Their unusual dynamic turns into a love that is quirky yet extremely touching.

Not even taking the characters into consideration this movie was really dynamite. It was a romantic comedy but it had a lot of spunk to it. It wasn’t the traditional pretty girl meets pretty guy and they hit it off in an all too perfect scenario. Although, it was no Tim Burton film either. What I’m trying to get at is the movie wasn’t a cookie cutter story but it was dark enough to not be sappily perfect.

The characters were exceptional. Billy Crudup played Henry Roth superbly. I have seen Almost Famous and he plays one of the members of Stillwater, Russell. He was the ultimate chill in that movie. In this movie Crudup is an absolute mess. He has to lie on the floor and put loads of books on his body to make him feel safe. He is obsessive compulsive and very unlikable. There is a suggestion of child abuse in his past but it is never made clear. Crudup gives a seamless performance of this absurd and troubled character.

Mandy Moore is also a treat to watch. When taking her career into consideration she seems to be another talented singer who tried to get into movies and then mildly succeeded. That tired actor/singer or singer/actor publicity stunt makes me very angry with the people that dabble in that situation. Looking back on her musical career however, she isn’t really that great. Her acting career has definitely been more fruitful than her music career and we should all be happy that this time the singer/actress stunt worked. She plays Lucy very well. She’s committed to make it as a children’s book illustrator and to understand and work compatibly with Henry. She is very likable, however she gets sassy if she is feeling threatened or annoyed.

The rest of the cast was cleverly picked. Some great supporting roles were executed. One in particular was Dianne Wiest’s role as Lucy’s mother. The woman is insane. She is the landlord of Lucy’s apartment and who pretends not to be the landlord and makes ridiculous claims. She does not approve of Lucy’s passion for illustrating and is trying to show her some tough love. Wiest is always a really fun actress to watch play a character. She always has that kindly and pleasant charm to her characters that are just on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

The entire movie was excellent. There were not any extras on the DVD which was fine by me. The movie did not need to be justified by a “behind the scenes featurette” or deleted scene extras. The movie itself was enough to satisfy my romantic comedy fix without making me hurl. What really drew me to this movie was that the characters and the actual story line were off-beat. It did not have a fairytale vibe throughout the movie. It dealt with real people and real issues. Again, make sure that you are in a movie watching mood when you decide to view Dedication. It will lose your interest if you are not focusing just on the movie. If you let yourself sit down and just relax I feel that you will be gratified in your choice.