Alumni of the Upright Citizens Brigade improvisation theatre centre, co-founded by Amy Poehler, Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe have emerged from serving their dues on the improv circuit and in TV comedies to make their own feature film. The pair first created the unique universe of “Greener Grass” in a short film that won special jury recognition for its writing at SXSW in 2016.

The surreal world their characters populate is a safe, dull, middle-class neighbourhood of the sort we have seen most recently in “Modern Family”. But DeBoer and Luebbe have chosen to decorate this particular suburbia in a range of pastel colours, not dissimilar to that created by Tim Burton for “Edward Scissorhands”. Its upstanding and overtly polite citizens get around in golf carts rather than cars. This device is brilliantly used in two scenes--four drivers meet at an intersection and are so deferential they each refuse to take priority, and a husband being thrown out of his house for infidelity struggles to pack all of his belongings into his cart.

Watch the trailer for “Greener Grass”

DeBoer and Luebbe play soccer moms Jill and Lisa who attend matches and suburban barbecues with their hapless husbands Nick (“Saturday Night Live” stalwart Beck Bennet)and Dennis (Neil Casey). But their world is turned upside down when, in the ultimate act of politeness, Lisa’s compliment to Jill on the cuteness of her newborn prompts Jill to offer her the baby. Lisa accepts with glee and immediately renames the child to stake her claim. Another incident involving the sudden transformation of Jill and Nick’s sports-challenged son Julian serves to emphasise the idea that the kids in this film are not beloved offspring but rather symbols of parenting talent to be put on display.

Too many contemporary comedy films fail to develop fully from what appears to be a sketch transferred to feature length. But DeBoer and Luebbe have managed to make “Greener Grass” much more than a one-off idea stretched beyond its limit. From costume and décor to music and dialogue, it is a thoroughly consistent film.

There are some weaknesses--a subplot involving a serial killer, which pays homage to 80s slasher movies, is sadly underplayed. But there is plenty of brilliant parody on display--Lisa and Dennis are horrified when their Damien-like son inadvertently watches a TV show called “Kids With Knives”--which makes “Greener Grass” a brilliant satire on the universal striving for domestic bliss.

Delano will pick a film of the day from the programme every day throughout the Lux Film Fest. Duncan Roberts is a member of the festival’s selection committee.

 “Greener Grass” screens on Sunday 8 March at 6.30pm at Ciné Utopia.