Hollywood loves a sad sack, the kind of guy whose life has gotten stale and horrible – and who then does something outrageous to get his mojo back. People, Places, Things, the latest from Grace Is Gone writer/director James C Strouse, scales down and simplifies the trope, and is much better for it.

Comic book artist Will (Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement) finds his wife Charlie (Stephanie Allynne) sleeping with another man at their twins’ fifth birthday party. This, of course, leads to their divorce and Will, already prone to depression, ekes out an existence as an art teacher living in a studio apartment in Queens, where he has to sleep on the floor the alternate weekends his children come to visit. When Charlie tells him she’s pregnant and marrying the man she cheated with, Will decides it’s time to change things in his life.

But he doesn’t quit his job, go climb a mountain or travel to an ashram in India to do yoga while he waits for the love of a good woman to redeem him. Instead, he changes everything by going out on a date with a student’s mother (Regina Hall). This is how Will slowly reclaims his life, sorting out his issues with his ex (who has complications of her own) and starting to work again on the graphic novel that he’s been delaying for years.

The movie is structured like a romantic comedy where Will is single, meet cutes with a lady and together they fight adversity, but it feels connected to real life; the experiences will be familiar to anyone who has gone through a huge breakup. There are no broad gestures or base comedy – the clever dialogue is instead packed with zingers, even if it sometimes takes a moment to get the punning humour. Clement’s unique comic timing and his character’s wonderful artwork add to this film, whose aim is to communicate how relationships work, rather than to create fake movie magic.