The verdict: (Untitled) is a sporadically funny but mostly droll comedy that will strike chords with only a limited audience.

Adrian Jacobs (Adam Goldberg) is an experimental composer whose work specializes in the atonal, dissonant and otherwise cacophonous. Scorned by enthusiasts, he is reproached for his lack of harmony at an artist gathering during an early scene. “Harmony was just a capitalist plot to sell pianos,” he retorts bitterly,

His brother Josh is busy making and selling oil paintings of multicolored amorphous blobs to hospitals and hotel chains. Both men long for respect and fame from the artistic community, but Adrian finds himself without any audiences and Josh’s art dealer, Madeleine Gray, refuses to show his paintings in favor of other, more experimental work.

One evening, Josh takes Madeleine to a performance of Adrian’s. She immediately sees undiscovered genius in Adrian’s performance of screeches, paper-tearing and bucket-kicking, and invites him to perform at an opening of hers. Soon a romance develops between the two as they both search for substance in a style of art that may not have any.

While all of the characters seem to be exaggerated caricatures of modern artists, their eccentricities are nicely balanced with the unrestrained absurdity of their “art.” The film allows the audience to find laughs not in the actions of the characters, but in their motivations. Ray Barko’s (Vinnie Jones) chandelier made of stuffed raccoons and Josh’s homogenous works of color-blobs are not funny by themselves. Rather, it’s the whole-hearted belief and the genuine passion the artists themselves exhibit that makes their work comical and gives the film its dry humor.

And yet, (Untitled) is, curiously, not as funny as it should be. It runs out of steam halfway through its running time thanks to a tired love plot and characters whose egos become increasingly egregious. The jokes grow stale, since the film tries to repeat the same formula over and over again with only a minimal amount of variation, although there is one genuinely hilarious gag involving a missing wine glass later in the film.

(Untitled) is a comedy that takes its subject matter — the question of meaning in modern art — very seriously. While the movie does an admirable job of presenting the internal conflicts already present in modern art (Adrian believes that his music is deeply original and meaningful, yet holds nothing but disdain for work such as “Pushpin Stuck Into Wall”), it becomes difficult to care when the characters become more and more unlikable.

The biggest grievance for many, perhaps, will be the film’s frustrating certainty in the nobility of personal expression, especially for those who find this sort of pretense and esotericism already maddening. The film would probably be more enjoyable for people familiar with the world of modern art, as there are in-jokes and clever satires that will go unnoticed by the average filmgoer.

Ultimately, however, moments of comedic successes aside, accessibility is not one of (Untitled)’s strong suits. But then again, the film is not meant for a wide range of audiences, either. Those who are interested in the question of the meaning behind art may appreciate the film’s quirks and sensibilities. Everyone else may prefer to stay away.

C-

Reach reporter Robert Frankel at weekender@dailyuw.com.