Chapter Zero Movie Review

Adam Lazarus's life is so sad -- gasp! -- that his first novel was rejected by one publisher! Can you believe it!? He's so despondent he throws the manuscript away along with his computer.

Putting aside the absurdity of the scenario that a writer would abandon his craft based on a single rejection for his first major work, Chapter Zero ultimately reveals itself as a pleasant enough -- though ultimately trivial -- little comedy.

Dylan Walsh is Adam, a typical Angeleno hack who makes a living ghost-writing other people's works for his sultry yet evil boss Cassandra (Penelope Ann Miller). His girlfriend Jane (Laurel Holloman) is supportive but a little distant -- and she even gets a job at Hooters when things turn south. But Adam rebounds and decides to write a second book about how awful his life is -- and this one's a hit, placing him into all sorts of predicaments both comic and otherwise.

Director Aaron Mendelsohn is best known for having written six films: Five of them are Air Bud movies, one is this. Zero is obviously drawn from some level of personal struggle with Hollywood, and it's clearly a labor love. Walsh is fine, but Miller and Holloman's characters both act too much alike and look similarly, too. But Mendelsohn's uneven script is the biggest problem here -- it wanders aimlessly during the second act and rises above the surface to crack jokes far too seldomly.