Starring Adam Scott and Joel Bissonnette. Rated 14A.

A chatty indie comedy that ends up being more Kevin Smith than it probably wants to be, Passenger Side has quiet moments that suggest something fresh in low-budget Americana. I just wish there were more of these.

Most of the yammering comes courtesy of two brothers for whom everything is a negotiation for power, recognition, and forgiveness. Michael (Leap Year’s Adam Scott) is a writer whose one published novel hasn’t set the world afire, and he sports almost enough cynical cool to cover that. Tobey (Joel Bissonnette) is a recovering addict who maintains a Kramer-like optimism about life despite his many failures. He sees himself as an outgoing yin to Michael’s overly cautious yang, and each brother remains convinced that the other is reading him wrong.

This dynamic is put to the test when, against his better judgment, Michael (who has a classic green BMW but treats it like shit) agrees to chauffeur the auto-less Tobey around on a day of increasingly complicated and far-flung errands. As transplanted Canadians in Los Angeles—for unexplained reasons—neither sibling has really taken root where he lives, and their mother’s name is occasionally raised like a club to beat one or the other into submission.

As devised by Quebec-born writer-director Matthew Bissonnette (Joel’s brother), the screen conversation is far from angst-ridden. The chatter keeps digressing into observational stuff that would have benefited from further pruning, although there is a small accretion of relevant detail as Tobey’s vaguely defined goals keep sucking his brother into absurd situations. The offbeat highlights include run-ins with a transsexual hooker and a trailer-park clairvoyant in the desert near Joshua Tree. Further hipitude is added by bits of moody songs from Superchunk, Leonard Cohen, and, per the title, Wilco.