If there was a perfect personification of millennial ennui, it might be Molly Bernard’s performance as Milo in Morgan Ingari’s feature film debut “Milkwater.”

Milo is quippy, she shares an apartment in Brooklyn with her gay best friend and she works in a quirky musical instrument store run by three Australian nerds but she feels adrift with her life as she watches her other gay best friend Noor (Ava Eisenson) celebrate a baby shower and her roommate (Robin de Jesus) takes off for a date. She’s left alone at a bar shooting pool when she meets 50-something drag club owner and performer Roger (Patrick Breen), who asks her for dating advice in the age of Tinder.

The two hit it off immediately, getting drunk and sharing their secrets, including Roger’s desire to be a father but unfortunately, had adoptions and surrogacies fall through in the past.

When they part ways, Milo mulls over his predicament for the next day and full of optimism and determination to do something bigger than herself, she decides to offer up her uterus up to Roger as a surrogate. He jumps at the chance.

Milo and Roger are fast friends, with her popping in at random asking for makeup advice, becoming a regular at his shows, tying herself to him in whatever way she can.

Slowly, Roger’s feelings toward her change as he attends a surrogacy support group with other dads and begins to put up walls as Milo becomes persistently attached to him, even using her pregnancy as a way to get him to hang out.

About halfway through, it becomes clear how much this is going to hurt.

Milo jumps into a near-obsession with her friendship with Roger, who feels the need to draw strict legal boundaries between him and Milo after the baby is born. To top it all off, she begins to push her friends and a new relationship with handsome guitarist Cameron (Ade Otukoya) away in favor of trying to mend things with Roger, which only makes things worse.

Left more alone than she was before, it’s up to her to straighten her own life out and come to terms with what she has inflicted before the little one arrives.

Milo is clever, too clever for her own good, and at times her quips and feeling the need to prove she’s right feels draining, but authentic. Bernard’s performance rings true to the lost 30-somethings of today, though way cooler and with more comebacks than most of us have. Her rash decision-making and longing for some purpose to her life that has become symbolic of her age bracket make her seem like a caricature at first glance but blossoms into something real.

Breen also deserves praise for a much subtler performance but no less impactful. He can break your heart with a look.

What the film lacks is more development from the side characters and plots, relegating them to the tropes of the inspirational boyfriend, the fun and free-loving roommate/best friend, the friend who puts her marriage ahead of everything else (and whose wife her friends naturally hate) and the kooky co-workers.

For her first time making a feature-length film, Morgan Ingari definitely came to play and brought an interesting story with two wonderful performances, which despite lackluster subplots, kills it with an ending that brings the waterworks.

“Milkwater”

101 minutes

Rating: No MPAA rating

Where to watch: Stream it through bendfilm.org starting Oct. 8

3 stars