The Metal Children

Adam Rapp’s sour-hearted satire, about a cynical and depressed author (Billy Crudup) who visits a small town that has banned his book, is an unsatisfying jumble of genres and themes rendered in language that ranges from vivid, visceral speeches to expository, on-the-nose clunkers. Rapp explores the delicate, symbiotic relationship between profane and sacred texts, and how one transforms into the other. But despite the tale’s often leisurely pacing and plentiful talk, the idea never digs in enough to blossom.—David Cote