GRADE: B+

It’s absolutely mind-boggling this gem of a movie wasn’t able to secure a distributor—director, star and co-screenwriter Peter Riegert wound up personally exhibiting his funny and knowing baby-boomer comedy at cities throughout the country before Ardustry Entertainment picked up the film for release on DVD.

Considering its first-rate cast, intelligent script, the quality of the performances and caliber and appeal of the story, “King of the Corner” would have seemed a natural for theatrical release. Working from the book, “Bad Jews and Other Stories” by Gerald Shapiro (who co-wrote the screenplay), “King of the Corner” is an earnest story about a middle-aged Jewish advertising director named Sol Spivak who can’t seem to escape the boredom of his job and the tumult and tension all around him, including that which comes from an 85-year old complaining father who repeatedly tells his son he just wants to die, a teenage daughter who’s in the throngs of rebellion and a twenty-something hot-shot assistant who clearly has eyes on his job.

Things become even worse when during a business trip the poor shlub (masterfully portrayed by Riegert, an underrated actor) runs into an old high school flame with incendiary results, and upon return to work discovers his ambitious assistant has stolen his new marketing scheme and submitted it to upper management as his own.

It’s not easy to make something out of so many storylines, but Riegert, directing a feature length film for the first time (he directed the Academy Award winning short film “The Courier”) knows how to handle it, managing to make just enough time for each of the various subplots to percolate and eventually boil, bringing it all together for a perceptive and down-to-earth finish.

The reserved acting style Riegert has used successfully in many films serves him well here; he doesn’t aim for the bombastic or the profundity many films about the existentialist aspects of growing older think essential to make clear. Instead, Riegert treats his audience with respect, not only allowing them to draw their own conclusions, but by not insulting them with a story that portends to be genuine, and then shows itself a contrivance.

Among the standouts are Eric Bogosian as a traveling Rabbi and Eli Wallach as Spivak’s father, who like the rest of the ensemble cast rise to the film’s many light but wonderful touches. It’s not as much a feel-good movie, although there are plenty of laughs, as a funny, thought-provoking one; the kind of film that stays with you well after you’ve seen it.

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