When a young man, politely turned down for a date by Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), says of her that he thinks roughly 99% of the men around Marnie are in love with her whether they know it or not, you would think she would take it as a compliment. But in writer/director Andrew Bujalski’s debut film Funny Ha Ha the affection of the men in Marnie’s circle of friends merely means more of a nuisance for her. The movie is a naturally acted, slyly written dramedy that resembles how a Rohmer film, in the most understated of manners, will gradually reveal layered relationship deceptions. Less interested in duplicitousness, but no less enjoyable, Funny Ha Ha resoundingly succeeds in an unexpectedly delightful way as an unobtrusively lo-fi study of the self-conscious social awkwardness of young 20-somethings.

Ostensibly without a plot, the film follows Marnie for a couple days after she is fired from a job, as she gets drunk with friends, attends a few low-key parties, decides to stop drinking, and temps until she finds something more permanent to do. She admits to pining for her now-single friend Alex (Christian Rudder), and his sister tries to get the two together, but an uncomfortable, embarrassing pre-emptive phone-call from Alex prevents the possibility of dating. Romantically forlorn and without an interesting job, Marnie exudes a cute sort of mopey vulnerability that seems to gradually attract all the men around her, regardless of their current romantic situations situations (even Alex comes around after he gets married). Most she has to reject, such as the advances of a very friendly but socially clumsy young man (played by Bujalski), and there is a sad, drunken moment at a party when the only advance she initiates she is rejected from. With not much of a plot to go on, Bujalski relies on two indelibly strong elements: the loose, awkwardly hilarious (and hilariously awkward) interactions between his actors as they stumble their way into and out of completely normal but highly discomfited everyday interactions (“Was that weird?” one character asks after one particular fit of gawky conversation), and Kate Dollenmayer herself, who is a wonder as Marnie. The character’s melancholy constitution, which seems so self-kept and secure, is always proved brittle when she is forced to either tactfully reject an admirer or herself falter through a flirtation. Utterly without pretense but alight with a specific, highly atuned insight to life’s unsung, painfully amusing moments of awkwardness for young adults, Funny Ha Ha is a small wonder.