Funny what can happen in the transition from television to movies; it seems like a natural, but there’s a delicate process that needs to happen. We’ll see if “Miami Vice,” arriving later this summer, pulls it off.

With a lower profile, the new film version of “Strangers with Candy” demonstrates some of the problems. The Comedy Central show was a cult hit a few years ago, and the same group of creators is on board for the movie. Yet the idea doesn’t click on a big screen.

I never saw a lot of the TV series, but I saw enough to know it was gloriously twisted, and a brilliant showcase for its co-creator/star Amy Sedaris. The premise itself was hilarious – a parody of tortured sitcom high concepts.

Sedaris played Jerri Blank, a 47-year-old ex-con junkie floozy, who returns to her hometown and enrolls in high school. Her dreadful adventures were the backbone of the series.

The movie backs up a bit, prequel-like, to show Jerri arriving in her town and returning to her home, where her father (Dan Hedaya) is in a coma. Witchy stepmom Deborah Rush has no choice but to let Jerri stay.

Stephen Colbert, who has lately hit it big with his mock new show “The Colbert Report,” returns to his role as Charles “Chuck” Noblet, an uptight science teacher. He lives a double life, appearing straight but carrying on a torrid secret affair with art teacher Geoffrey Jellineck (Paul Dinello, also returning and directing).

Dinello and Colbert wrote the script with Sedaris. They’ve got the flavor of the series – there are plenty of offensive moments here – yet the burden of building a story over the course of 85 minutes, rather than 22 minutes for an episode, seems to have boxed them in. There’s also that mysterious fact that certain things that are funny on a small screen in your living room are somehow not as funny when they’re projected across a theater.

The idea of casting guest stars is distracting, too. Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker both have funny moments in supporting roles, but they take the spotlight off Jerri. And Philip Seymour Hoffman and Allison Janney are overqualified as school board members.

The movie definitely has laughs, even if they fall between dead spots. Amy Sedaris has made Jerri a monstrous creature, her eyes heavily mascara-ed and her mouth pulled in a perpetual rictus. I wish it were better, but the film was worth making just to immortalize her grotesque performance one last time.

Stephen Colbert (left) and Amy Sedaris star in “Strangers with Candy.”