Comedy starts funny, then goes off the rails

William H. Macy, as both director of and supporting player in the eccentric ensemble comedy “Krystal,” seems to have taken a page (or 10) from David O. Russell’s “Silver Linings Playbook.”

In place of that 2012 film’s sports-crazed Philly family with a bipolar adult child, this Southern-fried tale (written by Will Aldis) centers on the Ogburns, an artsy Savannah, Georgia, clan headed by Macy’s professor dad. The problem son, in this case, is naive Taylor (Nick Robinson of “Love, Simon”), an 18-yearold who suffers periodic bouts of rapid heartbeat, caused by early trauma. (It involves a dead dog, a girly mag and Satan. Don’t ask.) After Taylor spies Rosario Dawson, as the titular beauty, wearing only a wet T-shirt on a beach, his heart goes thumpity-thump, for hormonal reasons.

Taylor pursues Krystal to an A.A. meeti ng, where she confesses to being a former stripper, hooker, heroin addict and alcoholic. The love-struck lad, whose lips have yet to touch alcohol, realizes he’ll have to assume abad-boy-demeanor, since, as he puts it, “She looks at me as if I were a small jar of Miracle Whip, in Dockers and penny loafers.”

So far, so funny.

We then learn that Krystal has a bitter 16-year-old son ( Jacob Latimore), whose late father caused the accident that left the boy in a wheelchair. Add to this scenario a lurking, crazy ex-boyfriend (rapper T.I.), and you’ve got a recipe for trouble — not just for Taylor, but for the film.

Secrets, lies and vast array of medical emergencies beset the game cast (which includes Kathy Bates and Felicity Huffman, Macy’s real-life wife) before the story goes fully off the rails.

CONTRIBUTED Nick Robinson, left, plays a young man who falls for a former stripper (Rosario Dawson) in “Krystal.”