‘Breakable You’ Palm Springs Review: Bright Ensemble Elevates Neurotic Comedy

“Breakable You” is like a kinder gentler version of Woody Allen’s “Crime and Misdemeanors”: a rumination on human fallibility and corruption with lower stakes but a lot more sexual heat in its heart.

Freely adapted by writer-director Andrew Wagner (“Starting Out in the Evening”) and co-screenwriter Fred Parnes from Brian Morton’s well-reviewed novel, “Breakable You” is the story of the Weller family, a cluster of neurotic New Yorkers who live outwardly charmed but inwardly tempestuous lives.

[...] Eleanor is the beating heart of the Weller family, a self-sacrificing but self-aware mother to her wayward daughter Maud (Cristin Milioti, “Fargo”) and a long-suffering woman whose compassion for others is externalized through her psychotherapy practice.

Adam is a somewhat celebrated Broadway playwright, and he’s in the midst of a catastrophic dry spell, possibly signaling the end of his once-promising career.

When Adam unexpectedly comes to possess the only existing copies of an unknown theatrical masterpiece written by a dead friend, well, what’s a self-respecting narcissist with writer’s block supposed to do?

By letting Shalhoub’s Adam occupy so much space without passing an easy judgment on him, Wagner presents a vision of comedy like Shakespeare’s — not punitive, but holistic.