Bob, Verushka & The Pursuit Of Happiness

Director and cowriter Roger Stigliano's spin on Jonathan Demme's SOMETHING WILD (1986) by way of Jez Butterworth's BIRTHDAY GIRL (2002) was made on an ultra-low budget — $30,000 — and has the on-the-fly, barely-holding-it-together feel of a first film. But it's actually his second feature; the first, a shaggy little gay coming-of-age story called FUN DOWN THERE was made in 1988, and Stigliano doesn't seem to have refined his craft much in the intervening decade and a half. Divorced, living with his sister and reduced to selling aerosol sprays, nebbishy Bob Friends (FUN DOWN THERE star Michael Waite, who also cowrote) has hit a personal low. He lives for his...