"(Untitled)" is a funny movie set in New York City's fashionable art galleries and experimental music scene. Its characters are erudite and foolish, not always likable, but fun to observe.

Adam Goldberg stars as Adrian, a composer who pays his bills by playing unobtrusive classical piano in a restaurant. His passion is creating pieces that employ clattering tin buckets, rattling chains and long, awkward silences. Harmony, he insists, is "a capitalist plot to sell pianos."

Marley Shelton plays Madeleine, a gallery owner promoting conceptual artists of the sort who slap a Post-It Note on the wall. Permanently scowling Adrian thinks her art is absurd and is too outspoken to sit on his opinion. Can this relationship be saved?

The script is clever and knows something about the modern art world it is satirizing. In fact, if you think John Cage is a Marvel superhero and Damien Hirst is the bad kid in "The Omen," you won't get the full flavor of the jokes. The motor of the story is the mismatched lovers, however; the specific references aren't crucial.

Thickening the plot is Adrian's prosperous brother Josh (Eion Bailey), whose woozy abstract canvases are bought in bulk by hospitals and corporations seeking to soothe their clientele. Josh pines for Madeleine, who uses her commissions from his vapid work to subsidize conceptualist goofballs.

The overall vibe is well-observed comic-neurotic angst, with some nicely framed and timed visual jokes. Two English actors add a nice bounce to the proceedings. Lucy Punch is a sweet surprise as Adrian's exasperated clarinet player. Cockney tough guy Vinnie Jones is cast against type as a snobbish art star specializing in taxidermied cattle. He declares, "the past doesn't influence me, I influence the past." A great line, with the nice extra twist that it was delivered decades ago by John Cage.

Colin Covert • 612-673-7186