Take John Hawkes as the awkward looking and behaving Richard, a shoe salesman. What can you say about a character who, in need of a ritual to mark the end of his marriage, puts his hand into a fire and burns it? If that doesn’t put you off, perhaps his general bumbling will. Richard, by the way, has two sons.

July plays Christine, an artist who is trying to get her work noticed. She becomes attracted to Richard as he eventually is to her. One wonders why that is true for either of them. This is apparently meant as a tender expression of a bond that develops between two otherwise lost souls. But it is pretentious in its striving for simplicity and kookiness.

The one situation that amused me involves Richard’s seven-year-old son Robby who, while surfing the internet, gets into a chat with a woman who thinks he is a potential lover and they arrange a rendezvous. The woman sits on a park bench ogling men who pass and wondering which one she is to meet. Meanwhile, Robby sits on the bench beside her, and only after he gets up the nerve to feel strands of her hair does the penny drop. She gently gives him a kiss and leaves. The moment has humor and poignancy.