Jess Weixler and Joshua Leonard in a scene from "Fully Realized Humans."

It’s not easy adulting. It can be tedious and make you feel like something has slipped by that would have made you a better human being.

In the Joshua Leonard-helmed, cleansing serio-comedy “Fully Realized Humans” which he also co-wrote and co-stars in along with Jess Weixler, Elliot and Jackie (Leonard and Weixler) try to explore those missing adventures and come to terms with the trauma of their upbringings that may make them, as the title suggests, fully realized before their own child is born.

The two almost-parents come to the realization that they’re not quite done cooking and need to release their dysfunctions brought on by the dysfunction they inherited from their parents. All this is born out of the most awkward of baby showers, where their friends inundate them with how much their lives will change, and possibly suck, once the baby is born, as well pile on their own reminiscences of what nightmares all of their own parents seemed to be. All of this while Jackie’s addict father has texted her asking for money to make rent.

When they return home, emotions are high, and Jackie breaks down over hummus, leading them to make a deal in which, for the next four weeks before the baby is born, they find things that empower them and help them work through things so they don’t end up like their parents.

The entire quest takes them to places where they have literally never gone before, from new experimentations in the bedroom, graffiti, stealing and getting socked in the eye for the sake of feeling it.

Its madcap tone settles down when the two have a heart-to-heart meeting with their obstinate and emotionally stilted parents at the root of their dysfunction in a beautifully acted scene featuring Beth Grant, Tom Bower and Michael Chieffo as their parents.

The acting throughout is where the film shows its strength. Both Leonard and Weixler give genuine performances of a couple who loves each other greatly, and together they decide to work through their own individual issues with love and snark. Just like any real-life late Gen X-early millennial couple.

While the script delivers some seriously realistic-sounding dialogue, however, it is marred with heavy doses of unnecessary exposition, and the film sufferers from reliance on the same tactics for conflict throughout. Every time tension needs to build, there is an argument — which on its own feels very real but is also tiresome to watch. With these arguments, the film suffers from pacing: The rise in tension takes a few beats too long to reach the pinnacle, and some start off at too high a level.

By the end of the simple journey the film is redeemed in part thanks to that cathartic and surprisingly quiet (for a film that loves to ramp up arguments) moment when we can all take a moment and feel whole.

“Fully Realized Humans”

72 minutes

Rating: No MPAA rating

Where to watch: Stream it online starting Oct. 16

3 stars