Movie Review: 'Girl Most Likely' -- 1.5 stars

Girl Most Likely
1.5 stars
Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
Starring Kristen Wiig, Annette Bening, Matt Dillon, Darren Criss
Rated PG-13

"Girl Most Likely" is a surprisingly sloppy movie given the pedigrees of directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini ("American Splendor") and stars Kristen Wiig and Annette Bening. It's all over the map: Scenes of sincere drama clash with broad dysfunctional family comedy before culminating in a bizarre finale that'd be more at home in "Red 2," also opening this week.

The concept is promising: Wiig plays a burned-out former playwriting prodigy forced to abandon her glamorous New York City lifestyle when her rich boyfriend dumps her, she loses her day job and she semi-seriously attempts suicide.

With nowhere else to turn, Wiig's Imogene is sent back home to Ocean City, N.J., and into the care of her estranged gambling addict mom (Annette Bening).

Mom lives with a boyfriend (Matt Dillon), who claims to be a CIA operative, and Imogene's mollusk-obsessed brother Ralph (Christopher Fitzgerald). Lee (Darren Criss), a Yale graduate slumming in a terrible casino Backstreet Boys cover act, joins this delightful ensemble as the dreamy twenty-something renting Imogene's room.

The screenplay by Michelle Morgan is the biggest problem here, riddled with unconvincing details and widely vacillating between disparate tones.

After the suicide attempt, which is treated sincerely, Imogene spends most of the movie alternating between moping and whining about her plight in life. This is a major waste of Wiig's talents. She seems to occupy a completely different movie from Dillon, who more-or-less resurrects his droll "There's Something About Mary" dunce.

The directors have no idea how to make sense of anything here, so they pack a big chunk of the movie with establishing shots showing the New York City skyline and Ocean City boardwalk. Eventually, mercifully, it ends, freeing us to re-watch "Bridesmaids."