This lazy comedy plays like a round of Quirky Indie Mad Libs: Kristen Wiig is a struggling New York (blank) who freaks out when (blank) and ends up back in Nowheresville, (blank), with her trashy mom who (blank) and her weird brother who (blank).
(Playwright; she loses her job and boyfriend; New Jersey; wears a lot of leopard print; wants to be a human hermit crab.)
Wiig, playing a variation on her sad-sack character from “Bridesmaids,” is Imogene, a once-promising writer who squandered a playwriting grant in her early 20s and has been roiling with writer’s block and regret ever since.
After being fired from a meager magazine writing job, she fakes a suicide attempt to try to win back the boyfriend (Brian Petsos) who recently dumped her — but ends up inadvertently hospitalized, and turned over to the care of her wildly irresponsible mother (Annette Bening), from whose parenting she’s spent her entire adult life trying to recover.
Bening, sporting an unreliable Jersey accent and vertiginous platform sandals, hasn’t got nearly enough to work with in this zinger-free screenplay; whenever she and Wiig are together, you get the sense they could have a lot of fun with completely different material.
Supporting actors, a capable bunch, are in the same boat. Broadway regular Christopher Fitzgerald brings the Zack Galifianakis-y edge as Imogene’s brother, Ralph, a mess of vaguely sketched agoraphobic dysfunction. He works a job near the boardwalk and lusts after a glitter artist (Natasha Lyonne) across the way.
Matt Dillon provides an iota of comic relief as Mom’s boyfriend, “George Bousche,” who describes himself as a samurai time traveler who works for the CIA (which he mostly backs up by owning enormous binoculars). But even he mostly calls to mind better versions of this character, like the sleazy private investigator he played in “There’s Something About Mary.”
And the ultra-likable Darren Criss is wasted in a small role as Mom’s boarder — and a casino performer of suspiciously “Glee”-like numbers. When not singing, he has little more to do than look adorable (successfully, it must be said) and chauffeur around the whiny Imogene.
I’m not sure the state of New Jersey will be thrilled with its portrayal here, either. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini basically depict it as a heavy veneer of tackiness spread over a core of wisdom about real values and how to live a life that matters. (New Yorkers, in contrast, are pretentious neurotics, as personified by Bob Balaban’s appearance as Imogene’s disappointing relative.)
I only laughed once, and it was when Whit Stillman made a cameo to be snubbed by the newly self-actualized Imogene. But it was mostly in disbelief; pretentious or not, Stillman represents a caliber of smart writing that’s wholly absent from “Girl Most Likely.”