What could have been an acceptable documentary on the bad acting of Billy Crudup is spoiled by writer/director Bart Freundlich’s delusion that he is making a film that’s actually about something. Instead of just letting the camera roll as his star attitudinizes through pages of awful barstool monologues and dopy miscommunication sessions, Freundlich adopts a grandiloquent, tricked-up visual style that would be better suited to a very expensive SUV commercial than to what is, I think, intended as an update of the Five Easy Pieces macho-going-nowhere mythos.

Throughout the 103 minutes of this ludicrous road movie, a single tone dominates: the dispiriting sound of dull conversations that could never take place between any people anywhere. It’s hard to decide whether Crudup is more unbelievable when he’s sensitive, feisty, or numb. "Do you get away with this shit because you look like that?" asks a woman he’s coaxed out of a bar to stare at the stars. Hmm, that might explain it. I’m not sure what explains the fact that Freundlich was allowed to make this film. The only moment I enjoyed was when the crew turned the smoke machine too high during a scene in a restaurant, making the establishment appear to be under gas attack.