In separate interviews recently conducted at Seattle’s Sorrento Hotel, actress Dana Delany and filmmaker Brooks Branch — star and director, respectively, of the drama-comedy “Multiple Sarcasms,” opening Friday — spoke with great fondness about Paul Mazursky’s 1978 Oscar-nominated “An Unmarried Woman.”

It was no coincidence. “Multiple Sarcasms,” starring Delany as the estranged wife of a would-be playwright (Timothy Hutton), is set in the late 1970s and shares more than a Manhattan backdrop with Mazursky’s hit vehicle for Jill Clayburgh. As with other relationship movies for real grown-ups from that era (Mazurksy’s “Blume In Love,” Alan J. Pakula’s “Starting Over,” Blake Edwards’ “10″), “Multiple Sarcasms” has little connection with today’s by-the-numbers, contemporary romantic comedies.

” ‘An Unmarried Woman’ had a huge effect on me,” says Delany, who moved to New York to begin a stage career in 1978. “It felt like real life. I love the messiness, the way relationships are captured, the way characters have to face themselves and figure out who they are. There’s no good guy and no bad guy in our film. It’s just sad.”

Hutton plays Gabriel, an architect whose midlife crisis is not so clear to the naked eye. Though good at his work, he spends weekday afternoons in movie theaters. He is loved by his beautiful family, has a couple of live-wire best pals (Mira Sorvino, Mario Van Peebles), yet is possessed by an inner disquiet. A friendship with a supportive theatrical agent (Stockard Channing) proves fortuitous, given his decision to map out his problems in a play.

As Gabriel writes, he realizes he has lived an ideal adulthood, yet has never caught up with who he was before adulthood really began.

“In most movies,” says Branch, “it’s easy to point to the cause of a problem. But in real life, cause and effect isn’t always obvious. Gabriel’s grateful for his life, but he hasn’t had the luxury to make decisions. That creates torment.”

Branch has a long background in the film business, though one unique to segueing into directing.

“I ran a creative division of licensing for Paramount,” he says. “I got burned out leveraging films for merchandising. I really was influenced by movies from the ’70s: ‘Harold and Maude,’ ‘Ordinary People.’ Films where the plot meanders a little in interesting ways.”

Though there is nothing visibly Pacific Northwest-like about “Multiple Sarcasms,” the film’s production was launched by a team of investors from Seattle, led by executive producers Patrice Auld, Martha Moseley and the late Keith Grinstein.

Auld, a longtime patron of Seattle arts, says she met Branch on a marketing project. Branch learned Auld had served as executive producer on “Expiration Date,” a 2006, prizewinning festival favorite by Seattle filmmaker Rick Stevenson, co-founder of TheFilmSchool. Auld sits on the board of that institution.

“I dabbled in film years ago,” says Auld. “Then I moved to Seattle, had a family and did nonprofit work. Then came ‘Expiration Date.’ It was a small way to get back in, feel creatively involved.”

Branch introduced his project to Auld, Grinstein and Moseley, and while the team raised “small amounts of money from a lot of investors,” says Auld, she worked with him on polishing the script. Later, she was involved in making a distribution deal, perhaps the toughest challenge these days for independent cinema.

“It’s a funny climate right now,” says Auld, who is currently working on a film written by Seattle-based actor Tom Skerritt. “There is a vibrant community here excited about supporting great scripts, but it’s hard to make money back.”

For Branch, the Seattle connection proved a far warmer experience than one typically hears about getting films made.

“I care about everyone who helped,” he says.