The buddy stoner movie is a timeless genre. It’s hard to look back on your college days without a tinge of nostalgia for the days when acquiring pizza was the most complex issue at hand. Directors Brian McElhaney and Nick Kocher turned to the absurd for their take on well-trodden territory, swapping the now-legal marijuana out for something trippier.

Jack (Gaten Matarazzo) and Montgomery (Sean Giambrone) are college roommates and close friends. Jack earned the ire of his university by getting the school football program cancelled, now subject to numerous bullies who pin him down and fart in his face on a regular basis. Both on the nerdier side, Jack and Montgomery harbor resentment toward Lizzy (Lulu Wilson) for abandoning them in favor of the cool kids group.

After the bullies destroy their alcohol, Jack and Montgomery take an illicit substance called “M.I.N.T.S.” which produces a highly specific type of hallucinogenic high that’s essentially just a bad trip. The only counterbalance to the drugs is pizza, which Montgomery orders by delivery drone. Their efforts to acquire the pizza are thrown into disarray by Blake (Jack Martin), an obnoxious R.A. who puts the building on near lockdown after catching a student with weed.

McElhaney and Kocher move to the beat of their own drum. Pizza Movie is an absurd trip that soars above its many narrative shortcomings, bolstered by outlandish humor and the stellar chemistry between Matarazzo and Giambrone. The dialogue is strong and works well with two leads who clearly showed up to play. McElhaney and Kocher know how to get a laugh, even sometimes from jokes that don’t quite work.

None of these characters are particularly complex people. The script makes the function of M.I.N.T.S. needlessly complex, introducing stages of the drug that makes the movie feel too formulaic at times. The second act almost sinks the entire experience, letting a lot of the air out of the room after a strong start.

In many ways, Pizza Movie feels like a high school movie forced to masquerade as a college narrative. It’s not clear what year Jack and Montgomery are supposed to be in. Much of the social politics, particularly the bullying, feels out of place in a college setting.

The film doesn’t dedicate enough time to character development to pack much of an emotional punch, but there’s still a lot to enjoy in watching Matarazzo, Giambrone, and Wilson work, three kids desperate to let their freak flags fly in a world that demands conformity. The jokes rely a bit too much on gross-out humor. McElhaney and Kocher do themselves no favors with some cheap meta jokes late in the third act, a script in desperate need of revision.

Pizza Movie is kind of a mess, the sort of film that requires you not to think too hard about the plot mechanics. McElhaney and Kocher are fantastic technical directors, but leave a lot to be desired as storytellers. The film isn’t likely to go down as a college classic, but this trip is a fun way to spend the evening.