Other People sets expectations firmly in place early on for its uneven mix of tragedy and comedy. A family huddles in a dark bedroom, some whimpering, some crying out, others silent, all grasping hands, all seeking tendrils of connection, all weeping over a recently departed body. In the midst of this disruptively bleak opening, the landline erupts, echoing through the empty halls. It rings a number of times, awkwardly interrupting the mourning at hand, before clipping to voicemail. Broadcast through the house, a perky female says something to the effect of, “I heard you’re, like, really sick,” and then goes on to sloppily order tacos and Coke at a drive through.

The moment works on multiple levels. First, it sets the tone for the kind of intrusive, partially satirical drama at play, establishing a world wherein the great tragedies of life are often spliced by the great banality of living. Like pigs to truffles, other people are quick to intrude in “the moment”. Other People harnesses some genuine appeal in this kind of darkly comic ordeal. Tender moments are truncated by oblivious acquaintances. One such instance involves a portly bagger at a grocery store who confuses one “bad” situation for another and ends up renting our protagonist, David (Jesse Plemons), a copy of Mirror Mirror on the house to make up for putting his foot in his mouth. As if anyone in their right mind wants to watch Mirror Mirror.

Whether Other People is able to maintain that melange of gallow’s humor and genuine bathos for the duration of its 97 minutes is another question entirely. Because, quite simply, it is not. It doesn’t help that the Frankenstein’s creation of “festival film” plays like a greatest hits of Sundance moments. Often exhaustingly so.

A struggling NYC writer (Plemons) returns home to Sacramento to help his mother (Molly Shannon) who’s fast fading from a rare form of cancer that’s proved particularly resistant to chemo. Add to that the fact that David is also gay, a fact that his father (Bradley Whitford) refuses to accept, and you have the perfect confluence of Sundancey competition film; one that’ll find limited love around the festival circuit before being widely rejected by the mainstream.

Unsurprisingly, this kitchen sinking creates a very bland flavor of tragicomedy. At once the affair feels deeply personal – writer/director Chris Kelly adapts the story from events in his own life – and yet wildly broad. Scripting issues abound, leading to moments that feel more borrowed than organic, authentic though they may be, and ultimately adds to a growing pile of rather rote events.

Standout moments come in the form of Plemons’ revealing portrait of a cripplingly insecure 20-something (and his various relationships that crop up in the film) and Shannon’s admittedly candid portrayal of a strong-willed woman who finds her strong will slowly deteriorating. The two share a handful of hard moments; aggressive puking, playing interpreter when her words are but whispers, pulling her from situations that prove overwhelming; general frown face stuff – but Other People can’t escape the shadow of last year’s Sundance cancer standout James White, which dealt in very similar territory to more affecting means.

Blending comedy into the affair is one of those things that sounds good on paper, particularly after the rousing success of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl at last year’s fest, but results in a bath that’s as uncomfortable and unsatisfying as an objectively bad one hit wonder. No wonder it’s so often ironically set to Train’s 2001 mega-hit “Drops of Jupiter”

CONCLUSION: Molly Shannon puts in her bid for awards recognition as a cancer stricken mother in the tragicomedy ‘Other People’ but for those sick to death of watching actors pretend to be sick to death, Chris Kelly’s debut brings very little novelty to the table.