Owen Wilson in Paint (IFC Films)

Owen Wilson has been around long enough it’s easy to forget just how funny he can be. Comedy has, of course, changed a lot since he appeared in Zoolander, Starsky and Hutch, Shanghai Noon, and Shanghai Nights (along with, of course, his many collaborations with Wes Anderson). However, his charming, unforced delivery of his lines, the laid-back way he inhabits absurd situations, and the perfection of his almost unchanging facial expression have scarcely aged at all, even if some of his films have. His appearance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice was perhaps the most recent reminder of how well his ineffable charm can be put to use.

Not I nor anyone (I think) could have predicted that he would play a Bob Ross–inspired painter, yet here we are. Carl Nargle, a Burlington, Vermont-based painter with an oh-so-sweet-and-quiet voice, paints landscapes for a public-television show. Some of his devoted viewers watch from nursing homes, some in their studios where they paint along with him, others from barstools in near-empty establishments. They smile as he coos to the bushes he’s painting (he names one of them Marcy), they lean forward as his voice gently coaxes them to look closer, and they are in no way bored that he always finds a way to paint the same mountain.

The team at the station seems, at least outwardly, to be in his thrall as well. They rush to him as soon as the camera stops rolling, they boast to one another of the times he came to their house with a gift of a painting, and Jenna (Lucy Freyer), a young production assistant who begins dating him, cannot wait for the night they are soon to spend together. The only one immune to him is Katherine (Michaela Watkins), the assistant to the general manager, who is soon to leave the station for a job in Albany. She and Carl used to be in a relationship, one they seldom acknowledge.

Everything changes when Carl refuses to take on more work (he doesn’t want to overextend himself) to help the struggling station, and a rival painter, Ambrosia (Ciara Renee), joins the station and starts her own painting show. While Carl paints the same mountain again and again, she creates unreal sights from her imagination, like flying saucers spewing blood. She quickly gains a following and the affections of Katherine, forcing Carl to confront his irrelevance, his decisions, and his unfulfilled dream of having a painting in a Burlington art museum.

You would not think that Wilson, someone with such a recognizable personality, would be the best fit for what is partially an imitation of the real-life Bob Ross, and at the beginning, it’s hard to get used to. After a while, the role becomes a vehicle for the actor’s talents. His quiet, subdued voice and persona sometimes magnify his deadpan expressions to comic effect. He never raises his voice, though a few times he insists that he’s yelling. Carl is also self-involved and obtuse, and Wilson plays the moments when this is revealed very well (the meeting in which he refuses to take more work, for instance). The film is at its best when it embraces absurdity, and there are enough amusing details and situations (many involving Carl’s custom-made van) to keep the viewer engaged.

Nevertheless, this film is more of a missed opportunity than anything else. Like its protagonist’s soft voice, it feels safe and unadventurous. Comedy and absurdity are touched on but never given full rein. Filmmaker Brit McAdams’s real focus, by the end, is to tell a heartwarming, self-affirming tale, which doesn’t work so well, since he does so mostly in hackneyed lines of dialogue and situations. Clichés are fine in comedy as long as they are played with and made fun of, but one finishes this movie with the sense that the filmmaker actually intended us to find the conclusion moving. As such, one watches Paint largely hoping for the film that could have been.

It must be said, however, that newcomer Lucy Freyer is excellent and hilarious in her role, tackling her wide-eyed eagerness for love and affection with an energy the rest of the proceedings lack. The scene of her date with Carl is perhaps the funniest highlight. She’s the real discovery here.