There's ambition in Noah Baumbach's colorful and catastrophic ode to the American family, but not much else.

In the playfully rebellious new movie “I Blame Society,” the young filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat steps in front of her camera to give one of the most unpredictably self-aware performances since, well...whatever it is the last thing Nicolas Cage did. Whether that makes it a great performance is a different question. But if one barometer of an actor’s effectiveness is how confidently they skate right up to the edge of incredulity without slipping over, then the answer is leaning towards the affirmative.