Lester Smart (Benjamin Evan Ainsworth) is the sort of kid who cannot help but be exactly who he is. He daydreams conversations with theater legends like Nol Coward (Mark Caven) and Tallulah Bankhead (Laura Benanti) and recites Hair lyrics at would-be bullies; he dons ascots and berets in a milieu where faded Motley Cre tees are the norm. If these are challenging qualities for a 14-year-old boy in late-80s suburbia, theyre also bound to serve him well once hes old enough to try his luck on Broadway.

Everythings Going to Be Great, the movie hes in, could have used a little more of Les irrepressibility. Instead, the new film by Jon S. Baird (Tetris) feels frustratingly non-committal, a mish-mash of wavering tones, disjointed story beats and themes explored only glancingly. Its not entirely a bad time, as things involving Allison Janney and Bryan Cranston tend not to be. But its not exactly a satisfying one, either. In a mildly interesting subversion of the usual Kurt Hummel-esque backstory, Les interests only reaffirm his bond with his parents, wannabe Broadway producer Buddy (Cranston) and pragmatic bookkeeper Macy (Janney). Their support does not extend as far as casting him in their regional theater productions he has to audition for them every time, and they generally cast him in roles so small hes forced to run on stage during scenes that arent his to get his fill of the spotlight. But when Les and Buddy are practicing the bagpipe before school, or singing along to showtunes in the car, its no mystery where he caught the theater bug. Among this crowd, its jock older brother Derrick (Jack Champion) whos the misfit.

But life in the Smart household isnt all sunshine and roses, even if Buddy is resolute that happiness is inevitable and his big break is just around the corner. His latest gamble, a seasonal producing job with the potential for longer-term employment, sends the family relocating from Ohio to New Jersey and then eventually to a Kansas farm owned by Macys semi-estranged grump of a brother, Walter (Chris Cooper).

Everythings Going to Be Great is good for some mild chuckles, mostly coming from Cranston in the first half. Never an actor afraid to go big, he plays Buddy as a charmer whos always on always dreaming, always scheming, always doing the most to light up a room. But he modulates Buddys grandiosity with an easy affection toward his family and occasional hints of frustration. His fights with Macy, over money troubles and her perceived lack of faith in him, touch on the downside of creative ambition. Dreams can destroy you, she warns Les late in the movie, and by that point weve seen enough heartbreak to recognize she has a point.

For her part, Janney plays Macy with lots of warmth but also a gnawing sense of disappointment. Its hard being the plus one in your own life sometimes, she confides to an actor friend (Simon Rex). Years of having to be the practical one so Buddy could be the fun one have left her feeling invisible, alienated from her own wants and needs. She increasingly turns to God for solace, to the discomfort of her pointedly nonconformist husband.

But Everythings Going to Be Great is really about Les coming-of-age. In its second half, the film shifts from a lightly twee comedy about a quirky boy and his even quirkier family to become an earnest drama about how Les navigates the long shadow cast by the imperfect father he adores, and the ways hes shaped by the unglamorous environments hes raised in.

Or, at least, thats what it means to do in theory. In practice, the screenplay by Steven Rogers (I, Tonya) doesnt develop any of these strands fully enough to follow them anywhere interesting.

Ainsworth does what he can to bring some soul to his character, but it seems telling that he tends to be most convincing and most affecting in the moments when Les is quietest, as when he finds himself verklempt by the loveliness of a church choir. While Rogers deserves credit for not sanding down too many of Les sharp edges (he can be a little shit, and the movie at least somewhat knows it), he never plumbs his protagonists psyche thoroughly enough to make him more than the sum of his affectations.

Macy and Buddy fare a little better, mostly because Janney and Cranstons lived-in performances help make them feel like real people. But their arcs are so simplistic as to feel underbaked; their crises barely get a chance to get going before theyre suddenly over.

At least with Derrick, the shallowness seems intentional, if ungenerous. Though the film isnt told entirely from Les point of view each of the Smarts gets their moments alone it shares its heros disinterest in the notion that Derrick might have any interiority worth exploring. To the end, hes an oaf who cares only about making the football team and losing his virginity.

Everythings Going to Be Great suggests that all of this is destined to become fodder, someday, for Les brilliant creative career. Kansas was my real inspiration. Kansas turned me into a real artist, an imaginary William Inge (David MacLean) reassures Wes. You can be happy here. (To which Les retorts: Didnt you kill yourself?) But if its meant to play as a sort of fictional memoir, it feels less like the finished product than the haphazard first draft overstuffed and underdeveloped, a bunch of hastily scrawled notes strung together in search of a point.