In 13 Conversations About One Thing, the "one thing" is happiness, which is controlled by the gods. Those gods are played here by director Jill Sprecher and her co-writer (and sister) Karen, morbid puppetmasters who run the universe on one part chance to every 50 parts dramatic irony. So when one character says, "Good ole Smiley, he's got the whole world beat," everyone in the room should be glad to be someone other than Smiley. The Sprechers' latest movie shows the same obsession with narrative and visual tidiness as their promising debut Clockwatchers, a black comedy about office drones and cubicle culture in which visual tidiness seemed perfectly appropriate. But since 13 Conversations expands the frame to cover all walks of urban life, the Sprechers' sock-drawer formalism sucks out the spontaneity like a vacuum, polishing up a world that should be a lot messier and more unpredictable. At least a few of their missteps are dignified by a terrific ensemble cast, anchored by Alan Arkin's gritty performance as a hardened pessimist who wills his bad fortune on everyone around him. A middle manager who lords over a diminishing branch in an insurance company, Arkin waits for a big promotion as he copes with his ex-wife and a heroin-addicted son who's always in trouble with the law. The other major characters, all connected by the circular timeline, include Matthew McConaughey as a rich prosecutor whose hot streak ends when he's involved in a hit-and-run accident, John Turturro as a physics professor who cheats on his wife (Amy Irving), and Clea DuVall as a lower-class cleaning woman with an unusually sunny disposition. How do these disparate loners achieve happiness? In the Sprechers' karma-driven universe, an act of charity can help the cause, but mostly they're left in fate's cruel hand, powerless to stop the inevitable ironic smackdown. It's telling that Turturro's lectures on the laws of physics figure into the story–he actually underlines the word "irreversible" on the blackboard–because every action has been so thoroughly worked out in advance. In spite of the uniformly strong performances, 13 Conversations largely factors out human nature, leaving a giant puzzle where each piece is pre-determined to fall into place. In the end, the Sprechers have a movie for people who brag about finishing the New York Times Sunday crossword in pen.