Life is funny

You might call this a screwball comedy for the 21st century. It’s not really an homage to the romantic-comedy classics of the 1930s that got that “screwball” tag, but it is an oddball romantic comedy with its own very contemporary kind of crazy streak.

In this case, the story centers on Donna (Jenny Slate), a fledgling stand-up comedian and would-be free spirit, who loses her boyfriend to one of her girlfriends, suffers publicly and on stage at some length, indulges in drunken revelry, meets someone new, gets pregnant, decides to have an abortion, falls in love again, etc.

Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre (and based on a 2009 short film by her and others), Obvious Child maintains its wry, good-natured sense of humor even as it navigates decidedly unfunny issues along with Donna’s onstage lapses.

Slate is charming even when she’s screwing up, and Jake Lacy is a low-key delight as Max, the blandly handsome young man who sees all that we see in Donna and falls in love with her anyway.