It's been billed as a comedy or comedy/drama, but "Me and You and Everyone We Know," the directorial debut from performance artist, actress and screenwriter Miranda July, feels more melancholy than almost any comedy we've ever seen.

July's calculatedly disaffected hipster style is already drawing comparisons -- and rightly so -- to the work of Todd Solondz ("Welcome to the Dollhouse," "Happiness"), but "Me and You and Everyone We Know" succeeds despite any affectations because July never becomes a slave to them and her film remains tightly focused on its story. And she never succumbs to the undercurrent of pessimism in the film.

Richard Swersey (John Hawkes) is a ragged -- and extremely unlikely -- salesman in the shoe department of a local department store and his wife has just left him. Now their two sons Peter (Miles Thompson), 14, and the 7-year-old Robby (Brandon Ratcliff) take turns living with Richard and with their mother.

Trying to survive the trauma of his new-found bachelordom and at the same time trying to be a good father -- even if it appears that he's entirely unsure about how to do either -- Richard is struggling through the days.

Meanwhile, Christine Jesperson (July) drives an elder cab by day and works on her film art projects during the evenings and has decided -- at the urging of one of the men whom she drives -- to try and her get work shown in the local museum.

When she runs into Richard, she becomes obsessed with him and they have a number of bizarre stop/start encounters that would normally put a person off. But she keeps trying.

With a few other subplots swirling around, "Me and You and Everyone We Know" is just entwined enough to be engaging but not so much that it gets tangled.

And all of the plots -- major or minor -- really focus on relationships and how we struggle to achieve them, struggle to maintain them and then struggle to undo the messes we make of them.

July has done a fine job with the script and there are fine performances by everyone involved.

Perhaps you'll also be struck by Hawkes' almost alarming resemblance, if not in looks then in demeanor, of Sean Penn.

"Me and You and Everyone We Know" opens Friday, July 22 at Landmark's Oriental Theatre.