The one thing you can always count on in a Quentin Dupieux film is that it will rarely make sense. His previous works of Rubber, a film about a homicidal car tire, and Wrong, an absurd missing dog story that amounts to nothing, should serve as clear indications that Dupieux is a surrealist filmmaker who doesn’t care about logic. His work often divides audiences—you’re either a fan of his meta-narrative tendencies or you despise them—Reality is no exception.

Like past Dupieux’s films, describing the plot mechanics of Reality is challenging and mostly useless. Here each subplot weaves with another, but unlike most interlocking storyline films, they never actually form into a cohesive story. For example, the film begins with a character named Reality (Kyla Kenedy), a daughter of a taxidermist who finds a mysterious blue cassette tape in the innards of her father’s latest kill. She spends the rest of the film trying to play the tape (which she eventually accomplishes, though it doesn’t make sense, naturally). But one night when Reality begins to fall asleep, Dupieux takes us down the first of many rabbit holes. Suddenly, the image of Reality sleeping is projected on a movie screen in a private screening between a movie director named Zog (John Glover) and Bob the producer (Jonathan Lambert). Yet, Reality interacts with and weaves into other story threads, making it impossible to tell reality from dreams, or if any given scene is actually part of a movie-within-a-movie. Leos Carax, David Lynch, Luis Buñuel, and perhaps even Jacques Tati would be proud.

The closest to a lead in the film is Jason (Alain Chabat). He plays a cameraman for a cable access cooking show (hosted by Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite) who wears a giant rat suit and suffers from an invisible case of eczema) and an inspiring filmmaker who pitches his film idea to Bob (who insists the filmmaker capture the best groan in movie history if it’s to receive financing). Later on Jason finds out that his idea was already made into a movie by a different director. But maybe he was just dreaming it was? Or perhaps Jason is a lead in the movie about wanting to make a movie? Maybe both.

Is your head spinning yet?

One red herring after another, Dupieux throws ideas at the wall without any intention of anything actually sticking. Eric Wareheim cruises around in a military jeep dressed as a woman for no clear reason, but he also plays the superintendent of Reality’s school. Every storyline connects, but the collection of random ideas amount to very little. Dupieux presents “reality” in the form of nightmares and half-truths, but never in a way to be taken too seriously. In fact, Reality might be Dupieux’s funniest movie yet. When Jason shows up to watch the movie he hasn’t made yet, Rubber 2 is displayed on the marquee outside the theater, a subtle nod for fans of the filmmaker. More obvious humor is found when Jason obsesses over recording an “Oscar-worthy” groan for his movie or when Bob can’t make up his mind on having the meeting with Jason inside or outside, eventually moving his entire desk to the middle of the woods.

Trying to put all the pieces together is pointless. The sooner one can accept a character shooting a surfer with a sniper rifle from his patio, the sooner they may just find the film to be an enjoyable experience. Still, as creative and thought-out as the film may be, its empty absurdity is frustrating and often tedious to sit through. For one of cinema’s strangest filmmakers, Reality’s humor and brain-teasing is a step in the right direction, but will still leave most viewers in the middle of nowhere.

So Young Kim has placed a young child at the heart of the story for her second consecutive film. In her previous film (Treeless Mountain) two young South Korean sisters who were abandoned by their mother, in For Ellen a young child was never cared for by her father to begin with. While the focus of For Ellen is around a directionless rockstar that never quite made it, the realization of losing his child leads to his long over-due first selfless triumph.

After spinning his car off an empty winter road, Joby Taylor (Paul Dano) must wait for a tow truck to come to his rescue before he can make it some appointment he is late for. This marks only the beginning of Joby’s problems at the moment. Not only is his career in jeopardy after an argument with a fellow band member, but this long-haired leather jacket wearing rocker has even more issues to worry about. They are revealed when he eventually reaches his appointment, a lawyer indicates that his wife wants to divorce him and take custody of their young six-year-old daughter Ellen (Shaylena Mandigo).

In the settlement agreement, it states that he would receive half of the house in the exchange of forfeiting custody of his child. But possession of the house means little to him compared to losing the ability to see the daughter, which he admits he rarely ever saw. He begs his lawyer (Jon Heder) to help him come up with a way to retain custody, but there is little that can be done.

Everything that is shown of Joby suggests that he would not make a very good father figure. He wakes up each morning with a massive hangover from the night before and seems to care more about his image (despite having an unkempt heavy metal rocker look) than anything else. But in a weird twist of irony, it is not until the threat of losing his child that he shows any interest in her. You would like to think that everything that is happening to him would serve as a wakeup call, and in a way it does. He realizes his flaws but whether or not he is able to fix them remains a mystery.

There will not be many who will argue that Paul Dano is nothing but spectacular in For Ellen. In fact, it is Dano who must carry the film’s bleak script on his back, which the film seems content with doing. He is in nearly every frame of the film, usually sinking further and further into depression as everything around him seems to be disappearing. His character is not a very likeable one, but thanks to Dano it is one that you find yourself caring about.

Aside from Dano’s performance, the other bright spot of the film is the beautiful cinematography. The entire film takes place in a rural town that seems inhabited by anyone, the roads are icy and empty and sky is never bright. This desolate winter landscape featured in For Ellen serves as a worthy backdrop to how Joby’s character must feel; lonely, cold, and depressed.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is everyone else who comes onto the screen, though it is not their performances that are problematic, it is their characters. Ellen is played well by the young actress but seems far too aware of the situation, often knowing more about what is going on than Joby, and certainly acts more mature. It was welcoming to see Jon Heder in a more serious role than he has been in previously but his character never is given the chance to truly develop. A subplot featuring Heder forcefully works its way in from the very beginning but quickly fades and subsequently disappears just as fast.

For Ellen could have hit more emotional notes if the script was not so underdeveloped, leaving everyone involved grasping for something to cling to but coming up empty handed. The brilliant Dano makes the slow moving film fly by, but even he can only carry the film so far with so little. Unfortunately, For Ellen is as flawed as much as the characters found within it.