“Hunt for the Wilderpeople”

Rated PG-13 (1:41)

***

Opens today at Kahala 8

Every once in a while, a small, unheralded film comes along, so smart and funny, such a pleasure to experience, you can’t believe your luck. “Hunt for the Wilderpeople” is such a film.

The wacky story of the unlikely alliance between an overweight reprobate of a teenager and a surly, wilderness loving loner, “Wilderpeople” was written and directed by New Zealand’s Taika Waititi, whose last credit was the admired vampire mockumentary, “What We Do in the Shadows.”

“Wilderpeople” was a surprise audience favorite at Sundance, where everyone who mentioned it smiled at the memory, and with good reason. The film has a gently absurdist quality, a simultaneously sweet and subversive sensibility all its own, mixing warmth, adventure and comedy in ways that consistently surprise.

Much of this tone comes from the novel “Wilderpeople” is based on, “Wild Pork and Watercress” by Barry Crump, an idiosyncratic author so beloved in New Zealand that he has sold more than a million books in a country of just 4 million people. (Crump’s one-of-a-kind New Zealand TV spots for Toyota four-wheel-drive vehicles, available on YouTube, made him even more of a national figure before his death in 1996.)

The combination of Crump’s sensibility, Waititi’s growing stature as a filmmaker and an irresistible story persuaded some of New Zealand’s top actors, starting with veteran Sam Neill, letter-perfect as unbending outdoorsman Hec Faulkner, to take roles in the picture.

But “Wilderpeople” wouldn’t be the success it is without its 13-year-old co-star, Julian Dennison. A talented performer in only his third feature, Dennison creates a convincingly multidimensional character whose personal unpredictability and sincere spontaneity is never in doubt.

“Wilderpeople” opens deep in the New Zealand bush, with a police car headed for a remote, isolated cabin. In the back seat is sullen Ricky Baker (Dennison), a city kid far from home.

Taking Baker to the latest in a long string of foster homes are a policeman named Andy (Oscar Kightley) and officious Paula Hall (Rachel House) of Child Welfare, who ominously describes Ricky as “a bit of a handful, a real bad egg.”

Having no such qualms is new foster mother Bella Faulkner (Rima Te Wiata), overflowing with enthusiasm and good spirits.

Bella’s husband, Hec (Sam Neill), is something else entirely. First glimpsed toting home an enormous wild boar he’s killed, Hec favors Ricky with a look that could freeze molten steel.

Hec’s disdain notwithstanding, it becomes clear that Ricky is not a bad boy, just neglected. He may say things like, “I’m a menace to society,” but his fondness for hot water bottles (essential for nighttime warmth in the outback) gives him away.

Suddenly, everything changes for Ricky. Child Welfare wants him back, and while Ricky, ever the gangster, hopes for “a shootout like ‘Scarface,’” Hec plans to disappear into the bush. By himself. Ricky says they could be a team on the run. The wild and crazy comic plot twists, misadventures and misunderstandings that befall this duo manage to be as unexpected as they are amusing. Which is a lot.