Canaries, those sweet little yellow songbirds, have provided fodder for a host of slang phrases, ranging from “canary in a coal mine” to synonyms for snitch, barbiturate, and a female singer. It’s hard to be sure what director Lawrence Michael Levine had in mind by titling his 30-something, mystery–romantic comedy combo Wild Canaries, opening this weekend at the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center. But that may be the ultimate joke. Other than being caged in the sense that New York City apartment dwellers are, Wild Canaries has little to do with birds except for a few random, mostly irrelevant shots seen at the start and finish of the film.

Brooklynites Barri (Sophia Takal) and Noah (Mr. Levine) are inching their way toward marriage with enough gabbing and squabbling to qualify for a nouveau mumblecore movie. They share their Cobble Hill apartment with freckle-faced Jean (Alia Shawkat), a lesbian with somewhat lustful eyes for her best friend Barri. Out of work going on six months, Barri has plenty of time on her hands, and conjures up a possible murder à la Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window or Woody Allen’s Manhattan Murder Mystery. The putative victim is the couple’s downstairs neighbor, 83-year-old Sylvia (Marylouise Burke), who drops dead of an apparent heart attack.

Noah, who is 10 years older than his fiancée and runs a fledgling film business, pooh-poohs Barri’s suspicions that Sylvia’s son Anthony (Kevin Corrigan) did in his mother in a plot to get control of her apartment. But before long, Barri has outfitted herself in a detective-style trench coat, floppy hat, and sunglasses, and sneaks into the deceased Sylvia’s apartment looking for clues. Add to the mix Damien (Jason Ritter), the shady artist/landlord who is on the outs with his ex-wife, and Noah’s lesbian ex-girlfriend-turned-business partner Eleanor (Annie Parisse), and the plot thickens.

The post–Hurricane Sandy world of these not-yet-fully-domesticated-by-children urbanites bustles with contemporary allusions. Barri dreams of renovating a Catskills resort into a music mecca. Gender identity and marriage have become fluid qualities, and sex roles, if not strictly equal, have nevertheless evened out. Barri, for instance, is by far more assertive than the often-befuddled Noah, who is unable to master the intricacies of his smartphone and worries that his sperm is going bad. Noah also ends up as a walking sight gag with a neck brace and a black eye.

The tangle of relationships, misadventures, and suspects in Wild Canaries at times overwhelms the film’s coherence, but Barri and Noah, along with Jean, Eleanor, Anthony, and Damien, make for entertaining characters, offering the viewer a goofy version of Nick and Nora Charles of the classic Thin Man film series.

Returning to the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center this weekend is Monk with a Camera, a handsome documentary about Nicholas Vreeland, grandson of Vogue editor Diana Vreeland. Mr. Vreeland left behind a life in the glamorous world of high fashion and professional photography to become a monk. After studying at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery for 14 years, he became the disciple of Khyongla Rinpoche in New Jersey, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama appointed him Abbot of the Tibetan monastery where he had studied. Mr. Vreeland became the first westerner to achieve such an honored position. He continued to take photographs, and in order to raise money to enlarge the monastery, he sold a collection of his work. Directed with an acute aesthetic sense by Tina Mascara and Guido Santi, Monk with a Camera tells the fascinating story of this unusual man, as well as providing valuable insights into Tibetan Buddhism.

Wild Canaries, Friday, April 3, and Saturday, April 4, 7:30 pm; Sunday, April 5, 4 pm.

Monk with a Camera, Friday, April 3, 4 pm; Sunday, April 5, 7:30 pm.