Dedication doesn’t start out too promisingly. Its central character, Henry (Billy Crudup), seems like he was manufactured out of spare parts of other “quirky” independent movies: he’s neurotic, obsessive compulsive, self-destructive, has an ironic job (an author of children’s books) and of course lives in a flat in Greenwich Village that looks like an abandoned warehouse. (That way there’s plenty of room for the camera equipment.) When he gets nervouse he lies down and stacks books on top of himself. Why? Who cares. He’s an unlikable bore.

Contrast that with Lucy (Mandy Moore). She’s trying to make it as a children’s book artist and has a few contacts but not many jobs. Her own mother is literally her landlord, a situation which is fortunate the first time your rent is late, but not so much the fourth or fifth time, when she finally tells you she’s evicting you. As luck would have it, though, Lucy lands a job just in time. Too bad it’s for a self-pitying whiner who stacks books on top of himself when he gets nervous.

Predictably, because this is a movie, Henry and Lucy go to work together and fall for each other. But there’s more at work here than just a simple romantic comedy formula. Henry already knows that he’s a complete jackass, but suddenly he starts to question whether or not that’s the best trait to have. Falling in love with a girl, laying under the stars with her, succumbing to the conventions of romance — those all sounded like the stupidest ideas to him a few days ago; now part of him wants to experience that, and it’s tearing him apart. In other words he becomes tolerable, and even, darn it, sympathetic.

I’m curious to see if other people will read the movie that way, and if like me they will initially enjoy Moore’s storyline more. That could just be because I always find Moore adorable, but then again, Crudup starred in one of my all-time favorites (Almost Famous), so as far as preconceived notions go, the two actors are even.

To be fair, Henry has just lost a girlfriend (Christine Taylor, who has exactly one line) and more importantly, his best friend (and previous illustrator) Rudy, played by Tom Wilkinson, who dies of cancer. While Henry makes the opening passages downright annoying (except for the occasional random witticism, such as “black kids are cuter than white kids”), his journey toward falling in love with Lucy is what makes the movie worth investing in.

Directed by actor Justin Theroux, it still falls into the movie-love-story formula (boy falls in love with girl, boy has sex with girl, boy has a big fight with girl, boy