[3] Morris Bliss (played by Michael C. Hall) is a 35-year-old man with poor job prospects who lives with his widowed father (Peter Fonda) in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan.

"[3] The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck wrote positively of the actors' performances, stating Hall has a "natural charisma" and that Liu is "appealing and funny", while adding that Fonda displays "gravitas and sly humor".

[2] NPR reviewer Ian Buckwalter found the characters in the book "full of color and whimsy on the page" but, in the film, "without the time or space to flesh them out more, their quirks seem labored and forced.

"[9] Variety's Dennis Harvey also wrote a lukewarm review, stating "Aiming for the delightfully offbeat, [The Trouble with Bliss] instead feels rudderless and incomplete, kept watchable by performers nonetheless undermined by their material.

The appealing Hall has little to do beyond look befuddled; Larson and Liu are stuck playing the kind of ill-conceived screwball-movie women whose main quirks consist of being exasperating and irrational.