I'm Totally Fine actually isn't, despite Jillian Bell's best efforts

But in lieu of any plumbed narrative seams about, for example, whether this version of Jennifer really is an alien, or whether her stated intentions and mission are fully truthful, Alisha Ketry’s script (from a story devised with feature debut director Brandon Dermer) instead indulges surface-level conversational patter and low-hanging comedic scenarios. The latter leads to a cameo appearance by Harvey Guillén as DJ Twisted Bristle, a party deejay (again, uncanceled) who shows up and allows for an extended, druggy dance sequence that features Papa Roach’s “Last Resort,” a song mentioned more than once.

Dermer has helmed music videos for Panic! at the Disco, Diplo, the Jonas Brothers, and Blink-182, among others. Here, working with cinematographer Wojciech Kielar, he crafts a movie with visual appeal, if not enormous ambition. There’s a palpable energy to segments told in montage, or set to music. And the selective use of Southwestern vistas enlivens the movie’s telling, around the edges.

But I’m Totally Fine feels like it never meaningfully engages with the themes it’s set up to explore. Shot in late 2020, its COVID quarantine production is an embraced metaphor for the isolation and powerlessness one feels following the passing of a loved one, but the movie is unwilling or unable to tease out insight or laughs from that juxtaposition.

Bell (22 Jump Street) is a gifted comedic performer with crackerjack improvisation instincts. But she also proved, in Brittany Runs A Marathon, that she can tap into swallowed sadness, and ground colorful lashing out and/or otherwise self-destructive behavior in relatable dormant feelings. She gives I’m Totally Fine a bright, radiant, and somewhat watchable core, despite the movie’s steadfast refusal to exercise the full range of her talents.

Morales, herself a director (Plan B, Language Lessons), also has the ability to navigate deeper dramatic waters. Unfortunately, here she crafts a one-note performance without a sturdy peg to hang a multidimensional character upon. Morales adopts a stilted manner of speaking, with an avoidance of contractions, that feels crafted for in-the-moment amusement. The result doesn’t really work, either in terms of generating laughs or filling out an arc in which Jennifer comes to her own realizations about humanity.

So-called small-stakes cinema, including movies in which only one person’s first baby steps toward emotional healing are the driving dramatic force, can compete with any CGI spectacle. They can do that even when their moment of big catharsis is arguably a conclusion grounded in a pat aphorism about the spirits of those whom we love living on in shared memories.

But what’s needed is a trajectory that makes those elements believable, and matter. And that is, sadly, what I’m Totally Fine lacks. It cries out for a more sincere tackling of Vanessa’s loneliness and anguish. There isn’t enough emotional gradation to her interactions with Jennifer, enough push and pull as she copes with learning things about their relationship, and how Jennifer viewed her.

There’s a line toward the end of the movie, where Vanessa says, “I’m sad, but okay.” This communicates its intended emotional resting place. It doesn’t take an alien’s report, however, to establish that the manner in which it lands at this spot is entirely unearned, and thus hollow.