Kevin Corrigan and Guy Pearce (Ryan Green/Magnolia)

Have you ever dreamed of a mumblecore feature adaptation of 20 Minute Workout? Probably not, but that’s sort of what director Andrew Bujalski has accomplished with Results, a deadpan comedy-drama about personal trainers and 21st century alienation. Set in a world of gym rats and the nouveau riche, the film takes the unpromising elements of infomercials, rom-coms, and workout videos and makes something original out of it.

Danny (Kevin Corrigan) is a recent divorcee who’s come into a lot of money. He’s relocated from New York to an Austin suburb where he rents a McMansion and has so much money he’s willing to throw away $200 to ask someone how to turn on his television just for the company. Trevor (Guy Pearce) runs the Power 4 Life gym and has been involved on and off with his best trainer, Kat (Cobie Smulders), who has anger issues; we meet her cranking up drum beats on her iPhone as she chases down a deadbeat client. Trevor assigns Danny to Kat, and as the Power 4 Life staff try to get Danny into shape, these three form a strange shape of tenuous emotional connections that will take more than bench presses to strengthen.

None of these people are particularly likable, but they’re all lonely. And in this not-quite love triangle, the beats aren’t exactly those of a conventional movie about lonely people trying to find companionship. The inability to communicate is one issue. Trevor is proud of what he thinks is the symbolism of his company name, Power 4 Life, but it’s an easy slogan, propping up his fit but empty shell much like the energy drink score artificially pumps up its empty characters.

Kevin Corrigan and Cobie Smulders (Matthias Grunsky/Magnolia Pictures)

Mumblecore auteur Bujalski’s previous film was the quirky, experimental Computer Chess, which was made with vintage ‘70s videotape cameras and set among the ur-nerdy milieu of chess software programmers. That film deliberately used outdated technology to portray an emotionally stunted demographic. Results could not be more contemporary, but it’s people are still emotionally damaged, even or especially when their bodies are pumped up. It’s a far more commercial film with actors that people outside the arthouse may recognize (including a hilarious Anthony Michael Hall as a Russian fitness guru), but the results are a revelation, a seemingly slick product that the director injects with his strange highly uncommercial beats.

The leads hit all their marks in a script whose tone requires a delicate deadpan balance. The film owes some of its unusual rhythm to the score by Justin Rice, who appeared as an actor in two of Bujalski’s previous films. You can imagine the director guiding his actors through scenes not just with character motivation but with beats per minute, thudding drum beats coming on like somebody’s basement garage band making a workout tape.

Results is about something as corny as the body and the heart, but the director treats it with as much ironic distance as the characters do. This is the kind of movie where a character declares feelings for another so matter of factly that the object of their affection needs clarification: “Well, can you describe those feelings?” The movie ends a little abruptly, but Bujalski knows that human results take even more work than a gym membership. I haven’t connected with Bujalski’s previous films, but I can describe my feelings about this one: I kind of love it.

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Results
Written and directed by Andrew Bujalski
With Guy Pearce, Cobie Smulders, Kevin Corrigan, Anthony Michael Hall
Rated R for language, some sexual content and drug use
Running time 105 minutes
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema