Mandy Moore got
her start in show business as a singer. At 15, she was cutting albums and
touring with the Backstreet Boys — all the sort of coded prerequisites for an
eventual Behind the Music-type washout. Yet Moore
has gone the good girl route, avoiding all of the trampy clichés of many modern
young starlets. In the process, she’s steadily accrued respect, and more and
more fame of the good, earned kind — not to be confused with mere notoriety.

Lindsay Lohan), she’s shown a fun and flirty side, but also
convincingly modeled moderation, earning her respect and role model status from
countless “tween” girls. Moore was
good in Paul Weitz’s satirical American Dreamz, where
she was required to play an aspirant singer who shrewdly trades on her small
town roots in audacious, eye-batting fashion. She’s also shown an endearing
willingness to indulge in goofiness (on the small screen in Scrubs,
in an arc with then-boyfriend Zach Braff). In her latest film, though, Moore utterly obliterates memories that she was ever “first” a singer.

The feature directorial debut of Mulholland
Drive and Miami Vice actor Justin Theroux, Dedication is constructed around Billy Crudup’s
bitter-hearted children’s book author, an obsessive-compulsive who’s learning,
in What About Bob?-style baby steps, to interact with
the real world in a more positive, healthy manner. Yet the film also requires that
Moore push back in compelling ways
— mixing it up with Crudup in substantive fashion while still retaining an
innate likeability. Her character, Lucy, is part messed-up spitfire, part
broken-hearted bohemian — exactly the sort of role that Parker Posey would have
knocked out of the park 10 or 12 years ago. This decade, though, it’s Moore. For the full review, from FilmStew, click here.