Film

A romantic-comedy formula gets the art-house treatment in this directing debut by actor Theroux (Mulholland Dr., Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle). Crudup plays Henry, a cranky children’s book author in his thirties who’s mourning the death of his illustrator and father figure (Wilkinson). Their books featuring Marty the Beaver have become a profitable franchise, so the publisher teams up Henry with struggling artist Lucy (a smoky-eyed, hipsterfied Moore), to whom he’s initially an utter jerk. They learn to work together and—well, you don’t have to be a psychic to foresee the ending.

The art-house elements come courtesy of the flash-cut edits, strange character tics (Henry can only sleep on the floor with a pile of heavy books on his stomach) and an indie soundtrack that could rival the songs from Garden State. Crudup and Moore give strong, angsty performances. The problem here is David Bromberg’s script, which is predictable and not that funny. The moments of would-be humor (Henry telling a young fan about an alternate definition for beaver, for example) fall flat. The screenplay doesn’t even explain Henry’s obnoxious behavior; we know it has something to do with his parents, but that’s it.

The most entertaining scenes feature Lucy and her crazy mom and landlord (Wiest), who’s constantly trying to evict her. A movie about that relationship would be much more fun to watch, and would allow us to forgive Moore for mother-daughter romcom Because I Said So, the Diane Keaton bomb she starred in earlier this year.