“KRAMER on Seinfeld was once described as a ”hipster doofus” and the same label could be applied to the filmmaker Florian Habicht – a lanky Kiwi with a dopey snigger, peach-coloured pants and a habit of buttonholing strangers.

This experimental comedy finds him hanging out in New York, where he supposedly sets out to romance a young Russian woman (Masha Yakovenko) who functions as a deadpan audience for his clowning.

The staged scenes involving this couple are broken up by interludes of seeming documentary. Habicht chats to his father on Skype from the bathtub of his scungy apartment, and wanders the streets quizzing strangers on what should happen next in his fictional relationship. Some suggestions are put into practice, while others – such as the idea that Yakovenko should turn out to be a man – are hastily dismissed.

Asked if he’s an artist, Habicht describes himself as a ”con artist”, a harsh but not totally inaccurate self-assessment. Evidently he means to fool us on some level, or at least keep us guessing about his intentions.

Did he genuinely fall for Yakovenko at some point, and conceive the project in order to spend time with her? Or is this, too, merely a fictional conceit?

But it’s hard to care about the answers. Sheltering behind his harmlessly dorky persona, Habicht never shows us anything painful enough to seem real; the film is far more an exercise in self-promotion than a study of the ups and downs of love.” (The Sydney Morning Herald)

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