The latest film from director Josephine Decker isn’t as stylishly artful as her previous films, 2018’s “Madeline’s Madeline” and 2020’s “Shirley,” and some may be disappointed by that. For the millennial coming-of-middle-age dramedy “Chasing Summer”, Decker aligns herself with the wild and fun sensibilities of its screenwriter and star, Ilisa Shlesinger, and the result is a story that is hilarious, charming, and sexy. While the two women grew up in different Dallas suburbs, they have fun here, bringing together Shlesinger’s whip-smart, rapid-fire dialogue with Decker’s vibrant approach to a big studio comedy. These relatably flawed and funny characters, offered from a female’s perspective, are a blast to hang out with.

“Chasing Summer” catches our attention immediately with a montage of natural disasters set to the sounds of a woman moaning in the throes of sexual ecstasy. What exactly does this mean? That carnal climax can be just as powerful as a hurricane or a flood? Sometimes. Maybe.

Either way, it’s an attention grabber, for sure, and from there we go to a one-take introduction to our main character, Jamie (Shlesinger), a fortysomething disaster relief worker currently dealing with the aftermath of a tornado in Mississippi. The scene is shot like the opening of a Scorsese film, as Decker and cinematographer Eric Branco (“Clemency” and “The Forty Year-Old Version”) swoop their camera in and swirl around an aid team that Jamie is a part of.

Within this brief time period, we meet her boyfriend (David Castañeda), who works alongside her, and watch as Jamie becomes ecstatic when she learns that she and her team have been selected to serve in Jakarta, Indonesia (which is, as she explains, the “Nobel Prize” of such assignments), and the next second her boyfriend drops a bomb and breaks up with her for someone younger, stating she hasn’t “changed” in years. In fact, he and his new girl have already put all of her belongings in a storage unit. How thoughtful.

In need of a place to stay, Jamie licks her wounds and heads back to the suburban Texas home where she grew up (filmed near Saint Louis, thanks to tax cuts), a place she’s been trying to avoid for the past twenty years. That’s where her mother, Layanne (a pitch-perfect Megan Mullally), and her father, Randall (Jeff Perry), still reside, and they take her back with the same ground rules they had given her older sister, Marisa (a wonderful Cassidy Freeman), who now runs the local roller skating ring, which is in desperate need of a new roof, one of its many maintenance needs.

Both of Jamie’s parents have skipped the “aggressive” part of being passive-aggressive and haven’t bothered to fully comprehend, or even appear to understand, the choices she’s made in life. Layanne points out that Jamie’s fingernails “are scraggly from all that volunteering,” yet Jamie hasn’t volunteered, and her mother either never understood that or hasn’t taken enough interest to remember it. She can’t even recall the places where Jamie’s served, but she can easily be critical of her worn-out gym shows. To be fair, the shoes look like they can walk themselves. All of this reminds Jamie how sleeping in tents halfway around the world has been more comforting than being back under her childhood roof.

From here, much of “Chasing Summer” turns into a typical “You can’t go home again” tale, but it’s less schmaltzy than the type of Southern romcom that Reese Witherspoon or Sandra Bullock used to star in. Shlesinger effortlessly slips into this mess of a protagonist, communicating her anxiety, humiliation, and self-loathing in convincing and humorous ways. There’s something wholly relatable about going back to your hometown, where the tendency is to slip into your old clothes and revert to the way people remember you. It’s easy to compare yourself to others and look at your high school friends who’ve never left town the same way you saw them as high school was ending.

Gradually, and unintentionally, Jamie catches up with her old high school classmates, and she ends up making each encounter more awkward than it needs to be. But that’s what’s funny about Jamie. She’s so in her own head that she doesn’t realize that not everyone sees her the way she sees herself, nor have they been thinking about how things were back in high school for the past couple of decades. At the local grocery store, Jamie runs into the trio of popular girls who used to hang out together in school. They still travel together, only now they’re less superficial “mean girls” and just gossipy locals married with children. Jamie is taken aback by how excited they are to see her, since they never gave her the time of day back then. They are living in the here and now, but every turn Jamie takes is an uncanny trip down memory lane. It’ll take her some time to understand her memories aren’t the same as everyone else’s.

The apex of Jamie’s humiliation and embarrassment comes from a rumor that spread the summer after she and her classmates graduated from high school. That’s when her sweetheart, Chase, broke up with her, and an untrue rumor spread about Jamie that she felt she could never escape, which is why she left to serve in disaster areas.

When she inevitably runs into Chase (Tom Welling) while helping out at her sister’s skating rink, she’s speechless as one who is never truly prepared to meet up with their true love. He senses it too, but he’s there with his wife and young children. It’s awkward for all the reasons you think, and Shlesinger and Welling convey a convincing lived-in history that’s suddenly unearthed after being long buried. These two are going to have to talk, and they will, but it won’t be easy.

To escape the challenging encounters, Jamie escapes herself by hanging out with folks half her age. It starts with her skating-rink colleague, Harper (Lola Tung), to whom Jamie offers unsolicited relationship advice, as if she has years of experience in that area. Harper appreciates someone who takes her seriously and shows an interest in her life, which makes Jamie feel useful. When she meets young Colby (Garrett Wareing, “The Long Walk”) at a swimming pool kegger party, she can’t help but get weak in the knees, despite her initial denial. There’s an instant sexual attraction, but to Jamie’s surprise, he’s not interested in a one-night stand or doing anything she’s not interested in. He’s not just a strapping young stud, but he winds up being a sincerely good guy who exudes a naive charm that’s undeniable. Their time together is startling and refreshing for Jamie. The sex is steamy and comical, and definitely seen from a female gaze (thanks to Decker and Shlesinger). Is she reliving her high school days, simply enjoying a May-December summer fling, or could there be more involved here?

One thing is certain: “Chasing Summer” will get a lot messier before it settles into its conclusion, which also means there’s more laughs (and some surprises) in the third act. Some viewers will quickly write off Shlesinger’s screenplay, but it feels drawn from a genuine place and has both head and heart to prove it. Some might also be upset that Decker seems to be forgoing the experimental style she was initially known for. So what? I’d rather see a director stretch out and try something completely different than to be known for one thing.

On that note, I only knew Shlesinger for her comedy work, and only recently. I caught her show last fall at the Chicago Theatre and thoroughly enjoyed it, not realizing how huge her following is. Hopefully, that fandom will draw more attention to this movie when it is released sometime this year. Shlesinger is a lot of fun to watch here, as is the entire cast, and she has given them characters who break out of the stereotypical roles we expect. Underneath all the funny moments and awkward encounters, there are some surprising truths to be found.

RATING: ***