Have you heard the one about the talentless cantor and the retired music teacher who walk into a bar?

In Nathan Silver’s charming comedy “Between the Temples,” the only punchline to this setup is that these two find a singular connection with each other. It’s a good thing that the film is completely hilarious, too.

Writer-director Silver has been churning out intimate and handcrafted character studies for 15 years (this is his ninth feature), but “Between the Temples,” co-written with C. Mason Wells, feels like his biggest film to date, even though it’s still a small indie shot on 16mm. He has cast bigger stars, Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane, alongside his usual company players (including his mother, Cindy Silver), and this feels like the film of Silver’s most likely to break through to more mainstream success.

“Between the Temples” is a laugh-out-loud comedy about religion and unlikely relationships, a kind of Jewish “Harold and Maude.” It’s premised upon a surprising connection between an older woman and a younger man, but the ways in which it’s like “Harold and Maude” have less to do with age gaps and more to do with the concept of two oddballs finding solace in each other while seeking respite in spirituality.

Ben (Schwartzman), the cantor who can’t sing, lost his wife in a freak accident, and on his way to the bar, he lies down in front of a semitruck, imploring it to keep moving, tormented by his grief-induced stasis in life, which involves living at home with his overbearing Jewish mothers (Caroline Aaron and Dolly De Leon). The music teacher, Carla (Kane), comes to Ben’s rescue after a drunken spat at the local watering hole, tending to his injuries with whiskey and ice. As it turns out, she was his elementary school music teacher. Later, she’ll turn up at his b’nei mitzvah class at the synagogue — she’d like to have her bat mitzvah, and her Catholic husband, lost to lung cancer, is no longer around to object.

So begins the strange but life-affirming friendship between Ben and Carla. It is fumbling and sweet, their dynamic reflected in Silver’s lively, playful direction. The handmade quality of the film is reflected in the many manual filmmaking techniques on display.

In “Between the Temples,” Silver evokes the unique warmth of “Harold and Maude” director Hal Ashby. It’s a curated sense of authenticity and humanity — a heightened sense of real life, refracted through a specific lens, that makes this feel like an Ashby film. But this is a distinctly Silver picture, funny, neurotic and, above all, compassionate.

Schwartzman and Kane have a delightfully offbeat chemistry, and they blend seamlessly into Silver’s ensemble. Robert Smigel plays Ben’s boss, the rabbi, whose daughter, Gabby (a terrific Madeline Weinstein), Ben’s mothers are working overtime to match-make with their son. De Leon is a wonder, as she seems to command any room, space, group or scene she inhabits with a sly but iron-willed control.

Silver’s approach to spirituality in this film is grounded in community and ritual. Both Ben and Carla are searching for something, looking for it in their religious practices. Ben hopes to find his voice again; Carla is looking to connect with a side of her heritage that she was never able to achieve as a kid. They ask questions about the bigger picture, but the film is not about transcending what’s right in front of them. What they are searching for, they find, is in each other.

Marching to the beat of its own drum, singing in its own key, there might not be a more authentic and purely entertaining film this year.

MPA rating: R (for language and some sexual references)

Running time: 1:51

How to watch: In theaters