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Johnson and Kendrick are just terrific together — ample chemistry, excellent comic byplay — and the sense of play, the feeling of one-upmanship in their scenes together, immediately cranks the picture up a notch.

There’s never any danger of Self Reliance’s reach exceeding its grasp, but it gets a firm handle on the things it does want to achieve: tell good jokes, craft likeable characters, and strike a lighthearted tone that’s always just a little bit odder than you may be expecting.

Johnson delivers a silly and frequently surprising why-we-need-people parable that leans on laughs in lieu of peril.

Self Reliance doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s exactly the kind of directorial debut one would expect from Johnson — and he certainly delivers a wild, energetic, funny story that still works despite a lukewarm ending.

This is a sure-handed debut with a reliable group of actors.

It’s a little too “Garden State” in places, but Johnson smartly puts a grim enough layer on their dynamic to avoid turning the whole thing into a treacly rom-com.

Self Reliance fares better when it plays up its fictional reality TV show. Johnson flexes his familiarity with the landscape and its mechanics.

The problem is that, while Johnson crafted a good script that balances multiple tones, his directing isn’t as confident in that tightrope.

The movie is too juvenile and too timid to acknowledge the real-world chill of its online cabal of murderous social misfits.

The premise is also genuinely neat, a fun, breezy little 90-minute high-concept that unfortunately sounds more propulsive and invigorating than it really is.