The opening scenes of Blindness are involving, even striking, and they seem to promise a film experience that’s engrossing, maybe even substantial.

I spent too much time pondering whether the people behind Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist were alluding in their title to novelist Dashiell Hammett’s once-famous, upper-crust, deliver-may-care detective husband and wittily supportive wife. Eventually, I stopped caring and tried to focus on this movie. This effort took less time; Peter Sollett’s movie has been described in the press as “an indie variation on a John Hughes movie.” That is, it’s supposed to be a sweetly contemporary, very mildly tart and ironic but adolescent-flattering romantic comedy.

“Comedically speaking, the topic of religion is pretty much hitting the side of a barn.” So says Bill Maher, host of the late Politically Incorrect and HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, about the topic that has been providing him with material since his days as a standup comic.