When a film boasts a morbidly obese albino, a Swiss alpenhorn, and fingernail clippings posted from prison, you know you’re not in for an ordinary trip to the cinema. This bizarre concoction stems from a novel by Chris Mills, as envisioned Jonas Åkerlund, a director who has risen to fame making music videos for the likes of Madonna, Lady Gaga and the Rolling Stones.

Playing the corpulent, oddball antihero is Matt Lucas, and fans of the British comedy series Little Britain will already be familiar with his own clutch of curious characters. However Lucas digs deeper here with Franklin Franklin, a lost soul now that his brother (James Marsden) is in gaol, who wants nothing more than to flee his tiny abode for the vast horizons of Switzerland. So it probably wasn’t a great idea to have killed his exploitative landlord (Peter Stormare).

Johnny Knoxville and James Cann add extra colour as Franklin’s kooky neighbours; their own microcosms of domestic misery fleshing out a story that revels in disquietingly dark comedy. Billy Crystal’s cop introduces refreshing flashes of lighter laughs, but for most that won’t be quite enough to redeem the macabre mess of scenes Åkerlund serves up in Small Apartments.