Somewhere in between the blockbuster releases starring Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller, there is a smaller slate of annual titles featuring A-list wannabes, all hoping for their breakout moment. In 2003, Will Ferrell emerged as the last newcomer to clear that hurdle, establishing himself both through the in-your-face “Old School” and the soft-hearted “Elf”; this year, Seth Rogen proved himself as a most unlikely leading man in “Knocked Up,” and “SNL” regular Andy Samberg stumbled badly in “Hot Rod.”

And now, to close out 2007, yet another hopeful takes a crack at it — a woman hoping to break into the all-guys-club of Hollywood comedy. This time around, it’s Anna Faris, the comedienne who has thus far made a career out of appearing in all four “Scary Movie” iterations. She may be best known to more discerning audiences for her brief appearance in “Lost in Translation” as the flighty movie star at the center of a press conference in Bill Murray’s hotel. But if Gregg Araki’s “Smiley Face,” opening today at IFC Center, is to be Ms. Faris’s crowning moment, the actress needs to have a serious discussion with her agent. A rambling, rudimentary, profoundly unoriginal stoner comedy, “Smiley Face” falls apart by its third scene, imploding not only due to a lack of solid material, but also due to the existence of another film that, three years ago, reminded us of just how good the stoner comedy can be: “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.” In that film, it was the all-night quest that gave the story momentum, an unfolding search for sliders that sent Harold and Kumar on an improvised road trip, where director Danny Leiner could devise one surprise after another.

“Smiley Face,” to the contrary, is about little more than a stoner’s aimless wandering of the city, a real-time head trip that gives Ms. Faris, as Jane (get it?), little more to do then stand there, jaw agape, fumbling with delayed reactions. If “Harold & Kumar” was hilarious because of the various personalities these two stoned, starving twentysomethings ran up against, then “Smiley Face” is lackluster because it doesn’t give Jane enough to do.

Things start with a five-item to-do list, scribbled out by a red-eyed Jane — a struggling actress — as she gets high around 9 a.m.: Buy more pot, settle the tab with her dealer, get to her audition on time, pay the electric bill to avoid disconnection, and don’t eat the cupcakes sitting in the fridge that were made by her roommate. Things go terribly wrong when her pot-addled mind forgets numbers one and two on that list, logging online to make an impulse buy of a $1,000 bed instead, and then when she forgets number five and eats the whole plate of cupcakes — which are laced with yet more weed. Without money for either the electric bill or her drug dealer, needing more weed to bake new cupcakes so her roommate will not notice her theft, and drifting into a thick, syrupy state of mellow, Jane’s day quickly accelerates into the realm of the absurd.

As the minutes and hours tick by, Mr. Araki (“Mysterious Skin”) keeps reaching for something tangible to nudge the story forward. Jane makes it to her audition, but doesn’t seem to notice the problem with her incoherent delivery, or the problem with asking the casting directors if they want to buy a bud or two so she can generate some revenue. Later, desperate for a ride to a weed festival, she calls up Brevin (John Krasinski, in a thankless, joyless role), the clueless guy who’s had a crush on her forever who sees this day as his big chance. Yet as their conversations devolve into stoned grunts, Brevin gets to do little more than furrow his brow and express confusion, emerging as a creation that’s every bit as pathetic as Jane.

The entire film hinges bizarrely on Jane’s discovery of a first-edition copy of “The Communist Manifesto,” which is handed to her by a stranger in a house she uses as shelter from the cops. Mistaken for someone else, she sets out with the priceless artifact, but it’s only at the film’s end, as Jane sits in a stalled Ferris wheel at an amusement park, looking down at Brevin (and the police), that things finally hit a brick wall. It’s not just silliness any longer; it’s sheer stupidity.

If this is meant as a lighthearted change of pace for Mr. Araki, after “Mysterious Skin,” then perhaps he took things too far in the opposite direction. This isn’t just light and fluffy; it floats away. And if Ms. Farris saw this as the ideal breakout project, then she chose something too one-dimensional and uninspired, something that’s already been done before and done much better. Even a crowd of stoners will surely need a movie with more meat than this to cure their case of the munchies.

ssnyder@nysun.com