Review: ‘Apartment Troubles’ only the start of pair’s problems

With the excruciating gal-pal comedy “Apartment Troubles,” writer-director-stars Jess Weixler and Jennifer Prediger have created such blurry, unappealing characters that their film is hamstrung from the get-go. That they never find a functional narrative in which to place said characters only makes matters worse.

The picture has no real sense of pacing or momentum. The result is a desperately sluggish ride.

Facing eviction from their illegal New York City sublet, broke roommates Nicole (Weixler), an untethered artist with wealthy parents, and Olivia (Prediger), an Adderall-popping, would-be actress, decide to visit Nicole’s TV-host aunt, Kimberley (Megan Mullally), in Los Angeles. (The private jet at Nicole’s disposal is just one of many leaps the film takes.)

Nicole and Olivia’s fleeting time in L.A. is filled with half-baked escapades, emotional mayhem and not a few delusions. The centerpiece of their “vacation,” an audition for Aunt Kimberley’s “America’s Got Talent”-like reality show, is a thudding disaster.

Weixler and Prediger seem blindly committed to their madcap meander through dysfunction junction, which includes dead cats, disorderly eating (there’s a gross cake-scarfing challenge) and lots of vague New Ageyness. Good actresses, wrong vehicle.

Meanwhile, the always game Mullally plays her giggly pansexual tippler as a “Will & Grace” Karen Walker-lite. Jeffrey Tambor goes with the flow as the women’s loopy landlord, but Will Forte’s overmedicated traveler is a truly painful creation.

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“Apartment Troubles”

MPAA rating: None

Running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes.

Playing: Vintage Cinemas’ Los Feliz 3.