That '90s Uplift: Fidelity

LANDLINE (B+) - Filmmaker Gillian Robespierre re-teams with her comic star, Jenny Slate, for a follow-up to 2014's winning "Obvious Child."

Here, they flash back to the 1990s for a period piece about a pair of young-adult daughters who find out that their father is cheating on their mother. Fine performances lend a boost to a sometimes flat script by Robespierre.

Slate is Dana, who is stuck in a dull relationship with Ben (Jay Duplass, solid as always) and, in a moment of weakness, cheats on him with an ex. She and her sister, Ali (Abby Quinn) are stunned when a file on a floppy disc popped into the family's Windows 95 setup uncovers a file of their father's mash notes to another woman.

John Turturro is nice and loose as their father, Alan, who gets nothing but putdowns and rebuffs from their mother, Pat (Edie Falco). He's a writer with more aspirations than published works. Their interplay is finely sketched.

Slate is a delightful leading lady, a Gilda Radner for the new millennium, chastely silly and adorably sexual. She feels underused here as she effortless drives the plot across a zippy 97 minutes.

Robespierre is a little too cute and self-aware with her period details -- telephone booths, CD listening stations, dial-up internet. At one point, Pat refers to Ali's app -- meaning her college application. Dana tosses out a random Urkel imitation (perfectly delivered by Slate). The movie's ending is abrupt and off-key.

But the cast makes it all feel lived-in, and Robespierre and Slate are now two-for-two.