DEDICATION

DEDICATION starring Billy Crudup and Mandy Moore is a quirky romantic comedy that doesn’t quite work. It also has some lewd, distasteful content making fun of writing children’s books. Happily, it abandons that obnoxious, perverse comedic line to become a rather predictable, uninspiring love story.

The movie opens in a seedy porn theater where two children’s authors, the obsessive-compulsive Henry and his middle-aged illustrator, Rudy, go for inspiration. There, they get inspiration for a new series based on an animal. The first book is a tremendous success, despite the story’s lewd connotations.

Then, however, the illustrator, Rudy, suddenly dies. Henry is, of course, devastated. Henry’s editor at the publishing company tries to get Henry to accept a new illustrator, a young woman named Lucy. Encouraged by imaginary conversations with his dead friend and colleague, Henry decides to woo Lucy. A big snag occurs when a secret that Lucy kept from Henry about her contract with their publisher threatens to destroy their budding romantic and professional relationship.

Even looking past the lewd aspects of the movie’s first part, Henry is not a character who inspires much sympathy, especially in the beginning. Then again, Lucy keeps important information from him. All this begs the question, why should the audience care whether these two people get together? In defense of the movie’s plot devices, one could perhaps say that the movie asks whether a romance can survive a major violation of trust and, thus, deals with an important issue. Even so, the sexual references and foul language in DEDICATION are distasteful and excessive overall. Besides, though romance can lead to marriage and children, it is ultimately pointless and unfulfilling if you and your family don’t have a proper relationship with God, which comes only through Jesus Christ. This lack of religious context is true of most romantic comedies, however.