In the Hulu series "Life & Beth," created and partly written and directed by Amy Schumer, Schumer plays Beth, a sales representative for a midlevel wine distributor in New York City that even her boss (Murray Hill) describes as mediocre. Though she is good at her job, and up for a promotion, her claim of leading a great life — "I am probably the most happy, satisfied person in this entire mall," she tells her lovingly critical mother, Jane (Laura Benanti), on an uncomfortable shopping trip — is clearly a case of the lady protesting too much.

There is a weight on Beth; the very air seems to slow her down. When her mother dies suddenly, her lack of tears is seen by those around her as symptomatic of a disordered personality. (The show is quite acute on the numbness that can accompany the loss of a parent.)

With her relationship with longtime boyfriend and co-worker Matt (Kevin Kane) coughing and sputtering and a 40th birthday looming, she abandons Manhattan for the Long Island hamlet where she grew up, there to face old wounds and court new possibilities. Extended flashbacks portray Beth's middle-school years, an anthology of challenges and humiliations at home, school and in basement rec rooms — though not without moments of hope, elation and best friendship. In the present tense, Beth visits a local winery to drum up business (Jon Glaser plays its uncooperative, irritated, irritating owner) and, at the connected organic farm, meets John (Michael Cera), the farmer.

"Life & Beth" has the curious quality of being at once a little awkward and and exactly what it wants to be. Its parts don't all tonally mesh — it is an amalgam of romantic comedy, straight drama, bits and sketches and adapted stand-up, with the odd line that seems to come more from Schumer than her character — and at times it feels constructed to deliver a point, a project as much as a story.

But it is also clearly sincere and personal, salted (like Schumer's script for "Trainwreck") with autobiographical details. Like Beth, Schumer, who grew up on Long Island, experienced a turn in family fortunes when their high-end baby furniture business went under; her father — Michael Rapaport plays Beth's — was an alcoholic; her parents divorced. (Whether her mother made a habit of short-term relationships with married men, I don't know, but it's Jane's defining feature.)

The series is also a love letter to Schumer's husband, Chris Fischer, a chef and sometime organic farmer (and her co-star on Food Network's "Amy Schumer Learns to Cook"), here molded into the person of Cera's John. (There is great authority in the series' discussions of produce.) It's frequently very funny, full of bright comic turns, and often quite moving, even beautiful, sometimes just for the space of a shot, in a way that might make you reconsider a character. It's sentimental in the end, but that is what sometimes happens when artists grow happy in their life.

The twist in the rom-com is that the leading man lacks the usual qualities of a romantic lead — though, that said, there is a whole body of romantic comedy based on falling in love with unconventional people, which makes "Life & Beth" not … unconventional. As will be known to viewers of "Expecting Amy Schumer," the excellent HBO Max docuseries in which she gives birth to a Netflix stand-up special and her first child, or to viewers of said special, Schumer's husband, John's model, is on the autism spectrum. John doesn't know how to whisper, or how to lie, which means he also inconveniently takes others at their word; he lacks social graces, obsessing about a boat in the midst of a funeral. Cera plays him with a slightly flat affect that reads as vexing or charming depending on the scene.

Despite Beth's myriad liabilities — "You are a red planet," says her sister Ann (Susannah Flood) when Beth mentions John's red flags — she is made less eccentric than most of the other characters we meet; and we are inclined to take her side, even when she seems less than kind, because we understand from those flashbacks that she's hurt.

The series is stocked with comedians, including Dave Attell as a rabbi, John Early and Kate Berlant as Beth's prospective customers, Janelle James as a shopgirl, Yamaneika Saunders as Beth's best old friend Maya and Gary Gulman as Maya's "Jew date" — and Schumer is clearly giving them room to work, often sitting back and playing straight. As is true of much current comedy, the casting has the flavor of calling one's friends and seeing if they'd like to come out and play.

And all of them, not least Hank Azaria as a funeral home director, are on point. If I say that I especially enjoyed Flood as (quietly) angrier sister Ann, and Saunders as Maya, who provide different sorts of ballast for Beth and help give her dimension, that is only because their scenes have particularly stuck with me. Though the season has a self-contained arc, what's here could easily support a second. Because life goes on.