“Cuarancena” may not be the most bourgeois comedy ever to come out of the Dominican Republic. But I’ve seen a few, and I’m guessing it is, and I mean that in the most flattering way.

A high-toned dark comedy that only really turns comic in the third act, it’s about folks who break curfew for a posh meal paired with fine wines late in the “cuarencena” (quarantine). The “price” they pay for breaking the rules for nouvelle cuisine are hurt feelings, sorely tested relationships, mistrust and a genuine fear of infection, or worse.

Chef Mateo (Luis José Germán) and restarateur Claudia (Soroya Pina) have invited his younger brother Jonas (Joshua Wagner), the gay couple Jojo (Isabel Spencer) and very pregnant Aurora (Elizabeth Chahin) and the ex-couple Carmen (Nashla Bogaert) and the goof everybody knows as El Chompi (Frank Perozo) for a multi-course meal and possible overnight stay, depending on what curfew is ordained that day.

Claudia doses almost everybody (not the pregnant Aurora) with disinfectant as they enter, checking their vaccination status as she does. Somebody didn’t follow her protocols.

But everyone knows everyone else, and it’s not just the noisy bro El Chompi and Carmen who have “history.”

There are secrets to be revealed, old feelings that haven’t gone away, and if we’re to believe the opening moments — the heard, not seen aftermath of violence — somebody’s going to get hurt.

The sixth film from writer-director David Maler (“Todas las mujeres son iguales” and “La Boya) is a blend of fine dining and furious hurt served up in sumptuous close-ups of each dish with each “chapter” of the picture including a wine suggestion for that dish.

“Main Course, Oyster Mushrooms in duck gelatin on a bed of seaweed and spinach” to be “paired” with a cabernet sauvignon. Of course.

The picture starts slowly, letting us settle into the characters and the “types” they play. Aurora and Jojo are a vegan and almost-vegetarian, fellow social justice warriors who refer to their baby-to-come as a “They-by” (in Spanish with English subtitles), because “We’re going to let them choose their gender after birth.”

Carmen is frantic that her new boyfriend wasn’t able to make it and seems unreachable by phone. And El Chompi, a life-of-the-party smoker, joker, COVID conspiracy buff and lesbianism is “just a phase” flirt, is giving his ex the full court press.

Something’s “off” about our married hosts. And some of it might have to do with Mateo’s relationship with his and Jonas’s parents.

Maler takes time setting all this up, with little bursts of testiness popping up out of nowhere. We get the feeling that were it not for the curfew they’re violating, somebody would be stomping out.

But the real drama — dark and then darkly comic — breaks out in the third act as shocks are followed by surprises, almost every one of them landing laughs.

Germán, Spencer and Perozo have the chewiest roles and stand out in the cast. But we buy into everyone playing her or his or “their” part, no matter how archly-drawn the characters might be.

Every Oscar season has a Best International Feature underdog or two worth championing and rooting for the “honor just to be nominated.” I’m pulling for this, a COVID “Cuarencena” from the second largest island in the Caribbean, and a pretty funny movie that streaming services should be fighting over any minute now.

Rating: violence

Cast: Nashla Bogaert, Luis José Germán, Isabel Spencer, Soroya Pina,
Frank Perozo, Elizabeth Chahin and Joshua Wagner

Credits: Scripted and directed by David Maler. A Lantica Media release.

Running time: 1:34