Dedication

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Dedication

65% Liked It
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Dedication

Amy Sedaris, Billy Crudup, Bob Balaban, Cassidy Hinkle, Christine Taylor

Henry Roth is messed up. A New York children's book author who tells kids that Santa doesn't exist, he hates sleeping with- and next to- anyone, including his girlfriend and must lay on the floor, usu...( read more  read more... )ally with heavy objects on top of him just to feel safe. His motto is "Life is nothing but the occasional burst of laughter rising above the interminable wail of grief.""Dedication," a modern love story in which a misanthropic, emotionally complex author of a hit children's book series (Billy Crudup) is forced to team with a beautiful illustrator (Mandy Moore) after his best friend and creative collaborator (Tom Wilkinson) passes away marks the directorial debut of Justin Theroux. As Henry struggles with letting go of the ghosts of love and life, he discovers that maybe all it takes is a little dedication.

Id: 9645049

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Dedication Recent Reviews
  • StaisilD
    May 17, 2008
    StaisilD
    Henry Roth: obsessive-compulsive, somewhat misanthropic, a writer of children's books. His illustrator and only friend, Rudy, dies after a fabulously successful collaboration on "Marty, the Beaver." Henry is under contract to produce another Marty book for Christmas sales. His pu...( read more)blisher, Arthur Planck, assigns penniless, lovelorn illustrator Lucy Reilly to work with Henry. She's sought by her ex-boyfriend Jeremy, who dumped her two years ago but shows up apologetic, having dedicated his new book to her. She and Henry go to a house on the shore to work. Will love bloom amid the rocks, or is Henry a bump on Lucy's road to Jeremy? Rudy's voice, from the grave, gives Henry counsel. Henry?s font of need is the film?s point of departure. He looks to Rudy for answers, or more precisely, frequent conversation, concerning his grievances, for instance, that his most recent girlfriend has left him because he won?t agree to marry her. The problem I had with this movie is less to do with the characters or actors; instead it?s the lack of chemistry between the two leads. This is not to say they don?t have their moments but I look at a character like Henry Roth and wonder how in the hell Lucy could fall for him in the first place. Dedication is a good movie that isn?t anything more than that. Billy Crudup and Tom Wilkinson are very good.
  • mrpopcorn
    May 13, 2008
    mrpopcorn
    This was a surprise. I bought this film expecting an average love story with clichéd scenarios and cheesy dialogue. Well, it turns out I loved this film a lot and I can't believe I'm saying this, Mandy Moore was great in this. I'm kinda partial with singers turning into actors so...( read more) I'm not really a fan of the thing but Mandy Moore in this film is an exception. She was great, I love her. She's not like those other singer-turned-actors who has only one expression in their face and it never changes throughout the film. Like Norah Jones in 'Blueberry Nights' and all those rappers in gangster films. She was pretty good here. Her leading man is Billy Crudup. I can describe him in one word: Phenomenal. He plays Henry Roth (50 First Dates homage?) a neurotic, eccentric, crazy, wacky children's books author who dislikes driving a car and likes to get his chest splotched by a stack of books. He reminds me of Woody Allen's character in "Annie Hall" They are very much similar. They're both neurotic, they both look like they'll break down in a jiffy and they both dislike driving. Fantastic.

    This is the director's excellent directorial debut. The dialogue was great it contains some very memorable lines, the chemistry between Mandy Moore and Billy Crudup sticks with you like super glue, the acting is superb (Tom Wilkinson huzzah) and the cinematography is better than awesome. The editing: magnifique.

    "Dedication" is a 4.5/5
  • OnlyNDreams
    March 3, 2008
    OnlyNDreams
    I almost stopped watching because of how irritating Henry was at the beginning, but once you get to see his ocd and anxiety problems you start to understand why he's that way. And once Mandy comes along, you get to see his sweetness. The rock scene was very sweet, but soo unlikel...( read more)y he'd actually find it again, lol.
  • EarthlyAlien
    February 26, 2008
    EarthlyAlien
    Dedication is Justin Theroux's directorial debut. It trots out the tired troubled-boy-meets-spunky-girl formula, but it somehow adds something new to it. I like to think of this 3-star rating of mine as a result of my fondness for Justin Theroux as an actor, and as a perso...( read more)nal tribute to two actors: Billy Crudup and Tom Wilkinson. I would just feel bad if I rated it lower.

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    A romantic comedy in an art-house disguise, Dedication has a lot of things going against it - romantic contrivances, characters conversing with spirits (spectral, not alcoholic), and overuse of indie-rock songs and visual gimmicks to cue emotional responses, to name three. But it has one big thing going for it - Billy Crudup.

    Crudup is one of the shiniest examples of underused actors working today, but when someone is smart enough to cast him he's pretty damn good. In Dedication, he plays Henry, an increasingly familiar type - the depressed, creative male plagued by crippling quirkiness. In the case of Henry, a writer of books for children, a generalized hatred of people (especially women, because of an abusive mother) is joined to several phobias and what seems like a mild case of Tourette's.

    When Henry's illustrator and best/only friend Rudy (Tom Wilkinson) dies, Alan Planck (Bob Balaban), the publisher of their bestseller starring "Marty the Beaver", wants to find a new drawing partner pronto, to finish a Christmas-themed follow-up in time for the holiday season. After a funny and very well-written scene in which Planck auditions a few young candidates, telling them that success is "99% perseverance and 1% talent. Congratulations, you're 99% of the way there", he offers the gig to Lucy (Mandy Moore). Her relationship with Henry almost ends before it begins when he berates her at their very first meeting. She storms out, vowing not to work with such a world-class jerk. An offer from Planck of $200,000 to fight through it helps to change her mind.

    What happens from there is predictable. Henry remains hard to like, but he lets down his guard just enough to allow Lucy a glimpse of his more vulnerable side, and this, along with his square jaw, sets her on the road to falling for him, nuttiness, hostility and all. Their budding romance is complicated by the reappearance of Lucy's old flame (not to mention Henry's self-destructive behavior), and people have to prove their intentions to each other, and emotional screw-ups lead to unlikely acts of atonement, and the book is jeopardized by the love-hate chaos surrounding its production, and Henry learns about himself and makes a well-intentioned lunge toward personal growth - but is he too late? Et-freakin'-cetera.

    All of this occasionally threatens to become too much to take, especially when it's accompanied by heavy-handed attempts at colorful detail. But Crudup salvages things with a strong central performance, resisting most of the stereotypical tics available for such a characterization. When he begins to catalog his neuroses, fears, likes, and dislikes as a way of breaking the ice with Lucy, the audience might rightfully fear the coming torrent of studied oddities, but Crudup redeems the formula in a way that makes Lucy's (and our) softening toward him - and the film - more understandable.

    Crudup is accompanied by some fine supporting actors, even if none of their characters are particularly rich. In addition to Wilkinson and Balaban, Dedication features Martin Freeman as Lucy's former love interest, Dianne Wiest as her mother, and cameos by Amy Sedaris, Bobby Cannavale, and Peter Bogdanovich. The impossibly attractive Moore - who was never, in my opinion, the bad actress that everyone thinks she is - isn't going to bowl anyone over with her performance, not least because Lucy is underwritten, but she's serviceable, and the fact that she shares so much screen time with Crudup without embarrassing herself speaks well of her potential. Plus, and despite the superficial/simplistic nature of the following, she's just gorgeous.

    The two have decent chemistry (the scene involving their first kiss - and this isn't a spoiler - is one of the film's best). The script has just enough spark to keep things from growing tedious, and there's one decision that Henry makes in his courtship (regarding information he has about Lucy's ex) that proves Dedication is smart enough to play with certain conventions, even as it caves in to others, and say something fresh(ish) about what it means to love and respect someone. It's not perfect by a long shot, but it manages to be romantic and entertaining enough, which is more than most recent romances can say.
  • johnd62
    September 10, 2007
    johnd62
    Justin Theroux is a terrific actor who has a lot of range and skill in his field. However as a director his first shot is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand the movie looks like a art house romance however turns into typical romantic comedy. The charecters are suppose to be witty,...( read more) misunderstood and scared of the world but just seem like *ssh*les. However there's strong acting from Billy Crudup and believe it or not... Mandy Moore (Please pick better scripts) and Martin Freeman that shows Theroux is good with actors and almost redeem this film. While almost.
  • mrbicklethepickle
    December 11, 2009
    mrbicklethepickle
    I honestly found the film a bit boring. It's a slow paced movie. I just kept expecting something exciting or different to happen. I don't think the script or directing was phenomenal. Not bad, a bit cute at times.

    I think Billy Crudup did a very well job. He's really convincing ...( read more)as a person with OCD. Although I wasn't rooting for him in the beginning, because he was just so horrible to everyone. I liked how you see a change in him at the ending.

    Mandy Moore was also good in this. I like how shes stepping into new and different roles, and getting away from that all american girl persona she usually plays.

    That's all I really have to say. There wasn't much that interested me or made me think. It had it's moments, I liked the acting, and thats why I am giving it 3 stars.
  • iamuncool
    November 29, 2009
    iamuncool
    henry roth's character was very interesting in my opinion. i rarely like these kinds of characters but i loved him. billy crudup's really a great actor for pulling him off. mandy moore also did well as lucy. unfortunately, i dont know, i think their relationship is still too shal...( read more)low at that point... or maybe not. well, at least the ending was not all that happy ever after whatever. but, i wouldve preferred that the film ended at that life is a skip of joy thing. that would've been a wonderful ending imo.
  • oso089
    September 6, 2009
    oso089
    An amazing movie, I laught and felt butterflies in my stomache during the whole movie. And it remembrance a scene of "A walk to remember" in a funny way.
  • hopeenb
    September 4, 2009
    hopeenb
    really good, imaginative, crazy, obssesive, psycollogical, romantic, interesting! just loved it
  • aredejrf
    September 1, 2009
    aredejrf
    Esse filme segue a linha que tem me agradado muito. Não a temática em si, mas a forma como ela se contrapõe sutilmente a necessidade atuais pelos exageros, hipersensibilidades, dramatizações sobrenaturais e finais espalhafatosos, com o que de fato pode ser concreto. Simples e leg...( read more)al. Acima de tudo o final otimista em relação as consequências, nem sempre tão imediatas e grandiosas como esperamos, de uma postura correta e não retórica, sem com isso perder a graça e docilidade de todo amor.

    Gostei
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