“I am the architect of my life,” declares Sherry, the central character of Adam Keleman’s debut feature, in her opening voiceover narration. But the structure she’s made of it proves mightily wobbly indeed. An alcoholic making a tenuous living selling cosmetics door-to-door, she sleeps with strangers she picks up in bars, lives in a motel and has left her young daughter in the custody of her sister for the last 10 years. Her desperate existence makes the title of Easy Living sadly ironic.

But as compellingly played by the charismatic Caroline Dhavernas (Mary Kills People, Hannibal), Sherry proves endlessly...