'Kind of a Funny Story' a low-key comedy

It's kind of funny, yes.

Kind of serious, too.

Kind of sad as well.

Mostly, it's kind of restrained and keeps its characters at an elbow's length, just enough for us not to get inside them, know them or truly come to care about them, even as we find them likable.

“It's Kind of a Funny Story comes from critically celebrated directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Bolen, who gave us the moving high school drama “Half Nelson and a little gem of a baseball feature, “Sugar.

They have created their new movie based on Ned Vizzini's autobiographical novel as a comic adolescent revamping of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by taking a gentle view of a hospital's mental ward through the eyes of a suicidal teenage boy.

Craig (Keir Gilchrist) doesn't seem to have a real reason to feel depressed and suicidal.

True, his parents (Lauren Graham and Jim Gaffigan) don't get him. Dad does say thoughtless things that undermine Craig's self worth. And Craig's little sister is no walk in the park of self-esteem, either.

He silently covets his best friend's hot girlfriend Nia (Zoe Kravitz), and that, plus pressure at school, doesn't help his frame of mind.

It doesn't matter that we don't see why Craig would feel depressed enough to contemplate suicide.

He just does.

So instead of jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, he checks himself into a hospital to see if someone can help him.

Oops. The juvenile ward is full up, so Dr. Minerva (Viola Davis) sends Craig into the adult ward where he befriends a kindly patient, the bearded and burley Bobby (seemingly omnipresent comic character actor Zach Galifianakis).

Craig and Bobby bond. Craig must stay in the ward at least five days, and they get marked off as sort of a narrative countdown that doesn't quite fit the story's gentle rhythms and quiet revelations.

Craig has a mysterious roommate (Bernard White) who keeps under his covers for most of the movie. (Yes, he does emerge at a pivotal point.)

Then, in a twist that feels forced and commercially conventional, there happens to be one pretty available teenage girl on the floor. Of course.

Her name is Noelle (played by Emma Roberts). She seems to be emotionally solid. But she does have scars along her left cheek.

Craig finds her very attractive, but restrains from asking how she got those scars.

“It's Kind of a Funny Story avoids a lot of pat answers and neatly wrapped up plot points. (We never find out exactly how Noelle received her scars.)

The movie sidesteps many obvious and cheap plot devices that would shamelessly play to our emotions.

The core of the film is the budding relationship between Bobby and Craig, and how their quick friendship fills up a few of the voids in both of them.

With Craig as the vaguely likable main character, Galifianakis gets carte blanche to be a free-spirited funny guy hiding a troubled past.

He is wonderful at teetering on the fine line between laughs and tears, and sometimes you wish he could have been the main focus of “It's Kind of a Funny Story.

If Galifianakis' restrained, manic performance doesn't cap this movie, the bizarre and enticing rock-video fantasy segment accompanied by Queen's hit “Under Pressure certainly does.

“It's Kind of a Funny Story

“It's Kind of a Funny Story"

Rating: ★ ★ ½

Starring: Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts, Viola Davis

Directed by: Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden

Other: A Focus Films release. Rated PG-13 for language, sexual situations.

93 minutes