An affecting – and apparently real – home-birth sequence comprises the last 15 minutes of Egyptian film-maker Sam Abbas’s otherwise fictional short feature. The sudden onrush of biological imperative gives this footage a gripping undeniability and focus that this loosely collaged account of a foundering Brooklyn relationship has been searching for – or perhaps that its characters are dodging.

It’s not the film’s central couple, though, who are having a child. Present in the apartment is Jamie (Poorna Jagannathan), who with Jenna (Maya Kazan) appears to be acting as a doula, a kind of spiritual guide, to the parents-to-be. Jenna strongly resembles Tess (Nikohl Boosheri), the partner with whom we see Jenna sharing her life in the film’s initial section. They take pottery classes, traipse through an exhibition, order antidepressants; all activities grasping for completeness but undertaken with an undertow of disquiet.

Then their paths separate, as they are “forced” to spend the night apart, in the words of the film’s summary – though, as per Abbas’s elliptical style, this isn’t clear from watching what actually happens. Tess meets a man at a gig by real-life techno DJ Nicole Moudaber, and he later forces himself on to her; Jamie sulkily masturbates at home and, heading out, is speculatively chatted up by a goateed divorcee.

The extreme understatedness is a little frustrating, and it feels like this is the consequence of a piece perhaps opportunistically cobbled together in the edit. But, the indulgent three-and-a-half-minute dancefloor shot apart, Abbas does this with considerable precision. His graphic-novel-esque tableau style carefully distils his themes of desire and connection, with humour threading through the ennui. An awkward interaction about choosing a vibrator cuts to a shot of two fingers inside the rim of a pot. For all its meandering, this has a human touch.

• Alia’s Birth is available on 27 August on digital platforms.