Entertainment

Extra boring & nothing more

Darlings, there’s nothing quite so tragique as a boring eccentric.

So might any of the capering clowns who populate “The Extra Man” describe this plotless, laughless, zero-impact comedy about contemporary Manhattan “characters” trying to be madcap in Jazz Age style.

Thirsting for the frolicsome and the debonair, a prep-school teacher (Paul Dano, an elongated woodland creature whose career is heading for the ranks of the formerly promising) moves to Manhattan from the country. Answering an ad from a “gentleman” who “seeks same,” he winds up becoming the roommate of an emeritus dandy (Kevin Kline) who has fallen into a state of lavish disrepair. The latter instructs his young charge in the science of high-society freeloading. This comes at the cost of escorting wrinkly ladies to dinner parties and the theater.

While Louis (Dano) observes, the penniless Henry (Kline) dabs shoe polish on his ankles because he can’t afford socks and swans around uttering would-be sparkling lines like, “I haven’t been sleeping right since my eye mask disappeared” and “My great opus was stolen by a Swiss hunchback!” Often Kline gesticulates and declaims. Occasionally he does an odd little dance. Never is he funny.

Irrelevant supporting characters linger in the background. There is a girl (Katie Holmes) who works at a magazine with Louis, but though he gazes upon her bra strap with longing, it is only because he wants to try on her lingerie. A taciturn wild-haired neighbor (John C. Reilly) of Henry turns out to have the following big secret: He speaks in falsetto.

The makers of the film (Shari Springer-Berman and Robert Pulcini, the “American Splendor” directors, working from a novel by Jonathan Ames) seem certain that you don’t need a story if you’ve got two hours of campy histrionics. But just to be extra-wacky, they have Louis repeatedly put on frilly underthings and get spanked by a prostitute. Ha ha. Look at the man. He’s dressed like a lady.