Alexander Cendese, left, and Seth Fisher in Blumenthal (Gone Fishing Pictures/Act Zero Films)

The only thing at stake in Blumenthal is its ability to be a Woody Allen film. Seth Fisher writes, directs, and, you guessed it, stars in his attempt at a witty romcom, with an excess of Allen-esque beats. The film follows the remaining family of the late Harold Blumenthal (Brian Cox), a New York playwright who tragic/comically dies laughing at a joke while watching his own play.

Harold has left behind a family who could care less about his death. To them, he was little more than a “prick.” There’s his jealous brother Saul, played by Mark Blum, who is convinced that Harold plagiarized his memoirs for the meat of his plays. Saul’s wife, Cheryl (Laila Robins), who once had leading roles in Harold’s work, tries rekindling her acting career as well as her looks. Then there is Ethan, played by Fisher himself, as the nephew, who asks himself, in cringe-worthy interior monologues, life’s big questions: Is my beautiful, seemingly perfect girlfriend good enough for me, even though she hits her spoon on the bowl when she eats cereal? The larger problem at play is his character’s total lack of charisma.

The only people that seem to care about Harold’s death are his longtime lover, Fiona (Nicole Ansari-Cox), and his agent, Jimmy Basmati (Fred Melamed), whose demeanor is just as cartoonish as his name. Picture an even more pretentious James Lipton and you’re right on the money.

This film has so many secondary characters that the main characters have no shot at captivating an audience. Saul’s greatest dilemma is a bout of constipation and a lack of self-worth. Once Fiona states that she enjoyed his memoirs, his constipation magically vanishes, and he feels like his life’s work did have a meaning. Cheryl just wants to feel attractive and desirable. With one audition callback and some attention from the new dog walker (Kevin Isola), POOF! she is a new woman. Ethan, in the meantime, seems to have no palpable dilemma, other than his constant attempts to market his socially hostile behavior as being “weird.” Unfortunately, the audience is not informed as to why he behaves the way he does, and he in turn becomes a one-dimensional character difficult to empathize with.

On top of all this, Ethan and his co-worker Isaac (Alexander Cendese) exchange banter that revolves at the speed of a robotic assembly line, and with just as much feeling.  The dialogue is forced and faux-intellectual, and the behavior of the characters is far from human.

The only actors that succeed have the least amount of screen time. Nicole Ansari, Brian Cox, and Mei Melançon, who plays Ethan’s girlfriend Christina, hold up throughout the movie. They do so while providing the film’s only breathe of subtlety.

Near the film’s end, Ethan ponders “difficult” questions posed to him by Isaac regarding his relationship with Christina: “Can you do better than her? Can she do better than you? Or more importantly, do either of these questions even matter?”

No, they do not.