The Independent Film Festival of Boston is upon us, and, just like last year, their schedule is jampacked with all sorts of goodness. Here's a few titles you won't want to miss: the nerd-rap docu Nerdcore Rising, the Harry Potter fandom docu We Are Wizards, with Wizards of Warcraft docu Second Skin, the British thriller Jetsam, the mock-doc Woodpecker, the horror flick Blood Car, director Brad Anderson's Transsiberian and (definitely a Must See) My Effortless Brilliance.

Here, I'd like to draw some special attention to My Effortless Brilliance. I watched it this past weekend, and can tell you I was transfixed. It's a riveting film, and yet little happens in it. So answer me this, Batman: how is it a film can be truly riveting when there's so little dramatic action? My guess is, as viewers, we give characters we like our extra, super-scrutinizing attention. And, well... the characters in My Effortless Brilliance might be jerks, but they're certainly likeable.

So here's the set-up: in My Effortless Brilliance the camera follows a successful, self-involved thirty-something novelist, Eric (played by Sean Nelson, lead singer of Harvey Danger), attempting to repair his relationship with his best friend, Dylan, an idealistic journalist. While on a book tour for his novel ("My Effortless Brilliance" - a title that's possibly a nod to Dave Eggers' "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"), Eric takes a side-trip to visit Dylan at his remote cabin. There they awkwardly re-connect over beers (and, just for the hell of it, while hunting a cougar). In mostly casual conversation, Eric and Dylan' egos clash over what it means to be authentic and shallow, and the different directions their careers have taken.

My Effortless Brilliance has a mublecore feeling to it, but I don't think it completely belongs to the genre, mostly because production value looks one step above. But it has that improvisational element; that sort of thoughtful hesitancy in every line Eric and Dylan deliver. It's not effortless, it's just nicely awkward and funny. All 90 minutes of it.

My Effortless Brilliance plays Thursday, April 24th at 7:30pm at the Somerville Theatre, and Saturday, April 26th at 2:45pm at the Somerville Theatre.