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Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) is a 23-year-old Bostonite and, as Funny Ha Ha commences, is encountering that perennial post-university problem: what to do without school to lend structure, purpose and a social network to your life? The answer? Not a great deal. Well-educated yet unmotivated, the cast of Andrew Bujalski's debut drift through life and love, miscommunicating at every turn as only twenty-somethings can. Funny this ain't, more like cringe-worthily familiar.

Take Marnie's unrequited crush on friend Alex (Christian Rudder). A mere mention of her interest and her friends are rallying round to set them up, resulting in a brutally humiliating time for her later on. Meanwhile, the men who are interested in her are either geeks or already attached. She temps to pay the rent and in the evenings just hangs with friends, all of whom are stalling on adulthood like she is. In one scene she writes a to-do list, but all she aspires to is getting outdoors more and starting to exercise. Yawn.

"LOW BUDGET AND INTIMATE"

It's as though Marnie is the protagonist by default, a gentle, undynamic and underplayed character captured in an understated no-frills style, begging the question of why you should be watching her for at least the first twenty minutes of the film. But Dollenmayer has a way of getting under our skin, aided by Bujalski's ability to use so much technique to create the feeling of, well, not much technique at all. With American indie cinema populated by slick studio-funded Sundance chasers, this is very much of the old school style. Low budget and intimate, perhaps to the point of belonging on the small screen rather than the cinema, its still an intelligent and unpretentious slice of life true American life.

Funny Ha Ha is released in UK cinemas on Friday 16th March 2007.