Recommending I Think You Should Leave to the uninitiated can be a tricky endeavor, but that’s never stopped the true believers. To hear them tell it, the Netflix sketch comedy series, whose three seasons somehow only provide about four-and-a-half hours of content, represent the vanguard of hilarity, a fearless creation that’s impossible to describe without fits of laughter. Taking cringe humor all the way up to (and then far past) its breaking point, nearly every skit positions star Tim Robinson as a man baby in a world of adults, unwittingly cursed to test the boundaries of every social moray under the sun. Parcelled out in small doses, Leave hardly ever lets Robinson stay in one situation for longer than five minutes, marking the sweeping plains of feature-length structure as dangerous, uncharted territory for his quick-burning style. The exhaustion factor is built into the proposition, but you wouldn’t know it from watching Andrew DeYoung’s directorial debut. To hear Friendship tell it, everything Robinson touches turns into queasy-making gold.

Craig, the flailing family man who Robinson plays with his signature anti-charm, has the exact opposite effect, alienating his weary wife (Kate Mara) and nervous co-workers with his every movement. His suburban ennui find an unexpected counterweight in new neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd), a local weatherman whose good looks and easy-flowing charisma attract Craig like a fly to the light. There’s something aspirational about what’s happening down the street, though Craig’s enthusiasm quickly boils over, leaving Austin with no choice but to terminate their newly minted kinship. As anyone who’s encountered Robinson’s comic sensibilities in the past could readily predict, the news isn’t taken lightly.

That familiarity will be as enticing to some as it is repellent to others, with Robinson proving to be about as chameleonic as a stone. Any number of SNL veterans have had theatrical success by simply porting their televised personas into the multiplex, but Robinson sets a new benchmark for rigidity. Even the verbal cadence and tics remain consistent, undoubtedly the product of DeYoung’s omnipresent infatuation, which places his star in the center of nearly every frame, and allows bits to unfurl without a vaudeville hook in sight. The result is a mixed bag akin to Should Leave, with some jests eagerly trying the audiences’ patience while others threaten to blow the roof off. Robinson’s lows are worth sitting through because the highs are cause for delirium, but you get the feeling that he enjoys both equally. When your comedic ceiling is this lofty, sometimes you have to bomb just to feel something.

What initially reads as a two-hander between Robinson and Rudd quickly skews in the former’s favor, though the latter is mostly here for symbolic reasons anyway, with Friendship operating as a clear spiritual sequel to 2009’s I Love You, Man. Both chart the galvanizing propulsion and rocky self-doubt of early platonic companionship, though DeYoung has no use for the standard double act dynamic that the previous film employed. Rudd is mostly playing the Jason Segall part, picking rare mushrooms, calling cops pigs, and shredding punk rock guitar solos as a means of bolstering his easy cool, though all of these traits are usually assigned to the insurgent character. In Friendship’s cockamamie worldview, the lines are much more blurry; Craig seemingly has more to lose, but he’s much more willing to roll the dice.

How he acquired such a life in the first place is left up to question, and while poking holes in the premise of such a broad comedy is surely a fool’s errand, Friendship makes such quandaries unavoidable. His gig as a tech consultant with an eye on helping nascent apps become more habit forming is certainly good for a laugh, though his place in the corporate pecking order, not to mention his surplus of disposable income, make it clear that things are going well professionally. Mara is also, objectively, way out of his league, suggesting a person who once possessed some level of social finesse and intellectual prowess, though the movie never even hints at such a past. It’s hard to get swept up in someone’s frenzied fall from grace when their initial standing is so illogical in the first place.

Perhaps a more polished script would have provided a legible backstory, though DeYoung’s screenplay always feels like an early draft. Thematic ambition should be credited regardless of outcome when it comes to ostensible crowd pleasers, but Friendship throws entirely too many ingredients into the blender to result in a proper puree. The oedipal complex that’s set up between Mara and her son (Jack Dylan Grazer) goes absolutely nowhere, in keeping the flick’s pervasive distrust of judiciary figures, which puts police officers, military veterans, and politicians in hazy crosshairs. The motif of soul-sucking commercialism is a bit more realized, and all those pomegranates are surely here for reasons beyond the aesthetic, but the final product remains over eager and under baked. There’s a meticulous deep reading that’s sitting right there for some young, enterprising scribe, but without the benefit of a fine-tooth comb, the whole thing feels tangled and matted.

None of that will matter to Robinson’s rabid fan base, nor should it for the general population. The foremost purpose of comedy is to be funny, with all the symbolism and ideological trappings merely functioning as added bonuses. Friendship’s jokes only hit at a modest rate, but percentages are less important when the ones that make contact are all grand slams. That tilted ratio has proven comfortable for Robinson and his supporters for years now, and if there’s an easy takeaway here, it’s that no one’s previously-held stance on his brand of comedy will be moving an inch. I Think You Should Leave proponents will be utterly delighted, while it cannot be stressed enough that those with an allergy to Robinson positively must sit this one out. There’s no accounting for taste, but if casually naming a character Jimp doesn’t sing for you, there are other options just down the hall.