It might be premiering at Toronto 2026 but we’re very much back at Sundance in the late 2000s/early 2010s with Trash Mountain, an indie-by-numbers not without its charms.

It’s the story of a city-living twentysomething who has to travel back to his rural hometown after the death of his father and contains a lot of what that logline would suggest. Awkwardly bumping into an old schoolmate in the dollar store – check. Brief romance with a charming local – check. Wacky grandmother played by an esteemed character actor – check. Scene of a stuffy local shocked at lead character’s bracing humour – check. Scene of a wise local giving lead character salient and miraculously well-timed advice – check. It’s not as if these elements haven’t worked well before and it’s not as if some of them don’t work well here (especially when compared to a recent heinous example), it’s just often harder to stomach such obvious formula in a film that is positioned as something so personal made somewhat outside of the system (despite boasting Jurassic World director Colin Trevorrow and Lilly Wachowski, who was originally set to direct, as producers, it was made in 18 days on a shoestring budget).

It comes from standup comedian and podcaster Caleb Hearon, who also stole scenes in HBO’s underrated Thanksgiving rom-com Sweethearts. He has graduated to lead here and it’s a mostly smooth transition with him being as naturally funny as one would expect but also convincing in his quieter, more dramatic moments, not something that can be easily said about many comics who try their hand at acting. The story is loosely autobiographical as is often the case in this territory with Hearon playing a version of himself called Gavin, who left Kansas City, Missouri, to live his full gay life in Chicago. His sister Abbi (Zooey Deschanel, adding to the retro Sundance vibes) has stayed back home with her husband (Splitsville’s Kyle Marvin) and two kids. When their father dies, Gavin returns to briefly assist (he’s adamant he’ll be back to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving although the film is a little loose on how far away that is throughout) and the pair must tackle what their hoarding father has left behind. Clue is in the title.

Not only do they need to clear the house but in order to set the estate proceedings in motion, they also need to find their father’s social security card (as a local tells Gavin it’s like “finding a virgin in a whorehouse”). There are some cliches admirably avoided – Gavin’s father was accepting of his sexuality, there’s no lingering tension between him and his sister who he remains close to – but others are embraced head-on. Their grandmother is written and performed, by two-time Oscar nominee Jacki Weaver, as if she walked on the set straight from a network sitcom, gratingly so at every point. She wails and prays and swears and pushes us further away from what should feel like a vaguely true story.

As much as Hearon, co-writer Ruby Caster and director Kris Rey might try to avoid the obvious conflicts (the only person who uses the word faggot is Gavin despite him giving his sister permission) they can’t seem to find enough texture to flesh out the gaps that are left. It’s never quite clear what kind of relationship Gavin really had with his father, minor detail coming only in a late-stage fireside chat with his sister. As refreshing as it is to see physically distant siblings actually get on, there’s also a samey quality to the rhythms of how they both talk and joke, copied too by her husband. It can often feel like the same voice is bringing all three to life, snappy in the moment (and Marvin and Deschanel are both very good at it) but a little hard to get a grip on who anyone really is beyond just an extension of the writers themselves. I didn’t need more arguments, I just needed a little bit more individual personality.

Hearon makes a sturdy case for more prominent acting roles though, away from simply playing token gay guy, and I’ would be curious to see him in a role pitched further away from who he really is in the future. As copy-paste as his flirtation with a local Grindr beau, played by fellow comedian Jaboukie Young-White, might be on paper, the two have a real easy chemistry and there’s a sharply written scene near the end that covers how unsettling gay intimacy can feel when it can be so swiftly moved on from, a clever way to distinguish an otherwise formulaic subplot. If an inevitable last act of mild confrontations, almost immediate make-ups and deep realisations doesn’t quite move us to the tears or uplift we want or expect, I’ll take the scrappy ride it took to get there.

• Trash Mountain is premiering at the Toronto film festival and is seeking distribution