Purportedly a romantic comedy about a dyspeptic writer of children's books and the perky new illustrator foisted on him after his longtime collaborator's death, actor Justin Theroux's directing debut features a strong cast that flounders in profoundly unappealing material.
That writer Henry Roth (Billy Crudup) and artist Rudy Holt (Tom Wilkinson) have made a living producing children's books is more than a little difficult to believe. The middle-aged Rudy is gruffly amiable enough, although he is prone to looking for inspiration in vintage porn films — hence the pair's franchise hit, "Marty the Beaver." But Henry is a miserable, neurotic misanthrope, emotionally crippled by abusive parents and riddled with neurotic tics — it's a wonder he has a girlfriend to leave him, given that he won't even sleep in the same bed with her, preferring to lie on the floor with heavy books stacked on his stomach. Nonetheless, Holt and Roth are a lucrative enough team to warrant gimlet-eyed publisher Arthur Planck's (Bob Balaban) putting up with their antics. So when Rudy dies of a brain tumor, Planck immediately goes looking for a new illustrator. He finds Lucy Reilly (Mandy Moore), who comes complete with pressing financial troubles, a crazy mom (Dianne Wiest) and Jeremy (Martin Freeman), the British academic who left her for another woman but now wants to rekindle their romance. Planck secretly offers Lucy $200,000 if she can get Henry to work with her on a "Marty the Beaver" Christmas book, but to make holiday deadlines, he needs copy and illustrations in three weeks. He then tempts Henry by loaning him his Sag Harbor beach house and Maserati (though Henry is, of course, terrified of driving). Henry remains loyal to father-figure Rudy, who hangs around in the form of a rumpled, cranky ghost, but he and Lucy eventually achieve a prickly detente that deepens into romance. But when Henry's wary nature gets in the way, it looks as though he may have finally torpedoed both his career and his one shot at happiness.
That Theroux assembled such a capable cast — including Christine Taylor, Amy Sedaris and Peter Bogdanovich — in bit parts (Bogdanovich doesn't even have dialogue) is a credit to the reputation he holds among his peers, and with different material he may prove a capable actor's director. The heart of the problem is first-timer David Bromberg's screenplay, which plays Henry's vicious nastiness for cheap laughs — at a book signing, he tells a terminally ill child that there's no Santa and throws in a vocabulary lesson about the alternate meaning of "beaver," what a riot! — while still pleading sympathy for his very real and deep-rooted psychological damage. Perhaps it's time to send the oh-so-amusing head case into the same oblivion as the hilarious drunk, along with the notion that the love of a good woman fixes all. --Maitland McDonagh
