Jenna Fischer and Daniel Yelsky mess with getting out of their mess.

Lots of movies focus on characters whose lives are messed up, but the cool and unusual thing about "A Little Help" is that the character is a woman.

Jenna Fischer ("The Office") plays Laura, whose husband dies early in the film, sending her into a financial, familial, parental and romantic tailspin. The trouble, as she says, is, "I'm a mess. But I was a mess before, too, so I don't know what's from what."

Who among us does know what's from what? The appeal of "A Little Help" is that Laura is screwed up in exactly the same ways many of us are.

Fischer has a forlorn, funny way with Michael J. Weithorn's snappy dialogue, which parcels out anger and sarcasm to everyone in Laura's family.

Brooke Smith is a hoot as her hacked-off sister, who "comforts" Laura by saying of the doctor who treated her late husband, "He might as well have just killed Bob himself, just strangled him with piano wire."

Weithorn has many sharp ideas, such as a scene that shifts between Laura being deposed by attorneys and answering student questions at her son's school, so that we're not sure which inappropriate response she's giving to which group.

"A Little Help" is not a hugely ambitious film, and whatever connection it's trying to make to 9/11 feels facile. But it's a good showcase for Fischer (closer to the weary mom of later "Office" episodes than the perky office romantic early in the series), and it has homespun insight into how messes such as Laura's might possibly get tidied.



Directed by: Michael J. Weithorn

Starring: Jenna Fischer, Brooke Smith, Kim Coates

Rated: R, for language and sexual situations

Should you go? Sure. Its female protagonist and her real-life woes are a lemonade-refreshing change of pace. ***