“Vengeance” is unexpected and, in the best way, weird. In his first film as a writer-director, B.J. Novak takes familiar elements, but puts them together in ways that are original and unexpected. Even when the plot turns go off the deep end, it’s impossible not to appreciate Novak’s audacity.

Often first-time filmmakers just want to make a plausible movie, something that looks and functions as a normal, acceptable motion picture. But Novak isn’t settling for that. Rather, “Vengeance” is an attempt to make a “B.J. Novak movie” before such a thing exists. He takes chances, succeeds most of the time, blows himself up once or twice and never threatens to bore his audience.

Novak himself plays Ben, a reasonably successful writer for the New Yorker whose personal life doesn’t amount to much besides hookups that he meets on dating apps. His focus is on his career, and his great ambition, which seems fairly modest, is to become a successful podcaster, working with Eloise (Issa Rae), a star podcast producer.

One day, Ben finds out that a woman with whom he had a casual affair has died of a drug overdose, and he allows himself to be talked into attending the funeral in West Texas, even though that means flying in all the way from New York. In Texas, he meets the young woman’s family, who are all convinced that he was the love of her life. There, experiencing culture shock and amazed by the colorful characters he meets, he decides to stay on and make a podcast.

Like Ben’s podcast concept, “Vengeance” changes shape and direction, mixing familiar elements in unfamiliar combinations. At first, it’s all about Texas as seen from a New Yorker’s point of view. Then it’s a murder investigation; then the story of deluded people who think their family member was murdered; then an examination of a divided America as seen from an oblique angle; and on and on.

Every time you think you’ve put your finger on “Vengeance,” it slips out like mercury, sometimes going forward, sometimes back into some previously abandoned direction. At times, it seems as if it might be the story of a guy who falls in love with a dead woman, or that of a guy who realizes he has to slow down if he ever wants to love somebody. But that aspect never quite takes over.

What distinguishes Novak’s film is that, in the aggregate, all these various feints and hints of plot directions don’t make “Vengeance” seem like a bunch of unrealized impulses. Instead, they all get thrown into the pot and become part of the movie’s texture and meaning.

Novak’s direction is full of detail, but he’s subtle about it. He hammers home nothing, just lets us see things — such as a stray look that crosses the face of a character who isn’t speaking. Watch J. Smith-Cameron, who plays the dead woman’s mother. Long before we explicitly know what Mom is thinking, Novak and Smith-Cameron are setting us up for things that will be said 30 to 60 minutes later.

Every character gets their due, and every actor is given something to do. Ashton Kutcher is in just a couple of scenes, but he’s memorable as an unusually insightful and philosophical record producer. And Issa Rae gets to show a new ease and confidence before the camera.

In the last half hour, “Vengeance” gets bizarre. It can’t be said that it falls apart, because the one thing it doesn’t lose is its audience’s interest. But it does go crazy, with a succession of big, unbelievable plot turns. Still, at his worst, I like Novak’s nerve.

M“Vengeance”: Comedy-Drama. Starring B.J. Novak, Issa Rae, Ashton Kutcher and J. Smith-Cameron. Directed by B.J. Novak. (R. 94 minutes.) In theaters Friday, July 29.