Meet Bill, not to be confused with the underwhelming and slight sci-fi Eddie Murphy family movie Meet Dave, is something of a surprise. While nowhere near perfect, this uncomforting dramedy kept me interested from start to finish. Aaron Eckhart delivers another one of his patented self-effacing and ego-free performances the likes of which seemingly get better each and every time out.

The film concerns itself with middle-aged loser Bill (Eckhart), an overweight peon going nowhere fast working in his father-in-law's bank and who is absolutely certain his wife Jess (Elizabeth Banks) is having an affair with a local television news personality (Timothy Olyphant). With no escape in sight, the miserable banker finds his world turned upside down when he starts mentoring a motor-mouth High School Kid (Logan Lerman) who thinks he has all the answers, including a perverse notion that the sexy clerk (Jessica Alba) selling lingerie at the local Mall is just the scantily clad ticket to make things right.

I have to admit, I didn't hold out too much hope directors Bernie Goldmann and Melisa Wallack's (the latter of whom also wrote the screenplay) indie feature was going to be any good. Truth be told, for a good fifteen or so minutes the pair didn't do all that much to prove me wrong. The early portions of the film are ponderous and annoying, the constant stream of pathetically depressing humiliation humor coming perilously close to driving me straight up the wall.

But, just at the point I found myself reaching for the remote to turn the darn thing off, something happened that caused me to put that thought on pause. Where in a normal Hollywood comedy Bill would have found himself the town's laughingstock because of his aggressively psychotic actions, here he remains just another guy going through the day-to-day motions of trying to live a life he isn't remotely happy with. People point and stare, sure, but they do it in a way that's bizarrely empowering, the character takes their mocking as a challenge to wake up, clean house and stop wallowing in his own self-created misery.

Okay, so the introduction of The Kid feels like a weird Rushmore-like add-on that doesn't always work very well, and I can't say Bill's interactions with his in-laws are any better than the ones you'd probably have found on an average episode of "Everyone Loves Raymond," but these end up being relatively minor problems that don't distract near as much as they probably should. Bill is such a well-crafted character, such a complicated mess of a human being desperately trying to reach for a Brass Ring just outside his grasp, I couldn't help but root for him and the filmmakers wisely keep their focus pointed squarely in his direction.

No surprise here but Eckhart is just great. So is Banks, and even if she doesn't have quite as much to work with her scenes with he costar crackle with just the right amounts of sparkling electricity making their relationship feel lived-in and real. The surprise here is Alba, and while I'm not about to say she's the next Meryl Streep for what could be the first time ever I can't really say a single rotten thing about her. The key, I think, is that all she has to do here is react to those around her, the actress achieving a gently relaxed demeanor fitting both the character and the movie she lives in perfectly.

Don't misunderstand me. While Meet Bill offers up some solid performances and a few genuine surprises it takes quite a long while to actually get to them. More, the ultimate climax is frustratingly pedestrian. We've seen this ending far too many times before, and no matter how beautifully Eckhart sells it I still couldn't help but wish the directors had the conviction to go in a different direction.

First Look Studios' DVD release of the film is devoid of almost all extras save for 14-minutes of deleted and alternate scenes. Two of them are pretty darn good (a post-affair discussion on the couch with Jess and an elongated take of The Kid and Bill smoking a joint) while the rest aren't anything to write home about. Otherwise there isn't too much else to talk about.

While I was pleasantly surprised I'm realistic enough to realize this isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, Meet Bill an unusual comedy with some great performances and some decent surprises all of which ultimately lead to a forgettable conclusion that can't help but disappoint (if only just a little bit). Not sure if that's a recommendation or not but, unfortunately, it's still the best one I've got. Make of it what you will.