The closest thing I can get at is, in fact, a Kaufman written movie, like Being John Malkevich, the aforementioned Adaptation, or Synechdoche, NY. He uses a meandering plotline - jumping from one point in time to another along the timeline of the character (although this is explained by constant time travel) - to discuss heavy-hitting themes with a whimsical, informal style. He's basically saying, "It's so disgusting and wrong and inexplicable that its funny." The main character Billy Pilgrim's attitude is representative of the philosophy of the whole book, which is a passive acceptance of fate, expressed often after a death is described with the phrase, "so it goes."
The book describes the life of Billy Pilgrim through nonlinear time travel from one point of his life to another. This can happen at any time (and actually includes being abducted by aliens and taken to their home planet, Tralfamadore). The thing about Billy is that nothing really surprises him because he's already travelled all over his life and knows what is coming - and he just seems to accept it. The focus event of the book and of Billy Pilgrim's life is one that Vonnegut actually experienced himself: the fire bombing at Dresden, Germany, during World War II. Tens of thousands of German civilians were killed when the town was obliterated by Allied forces right near the end of the war. Vonnegut compares it to Hiroshima, and hints it might have even been worse than that in some ways. He writes himself into the book as the narrator, although his role and that of his friend O'hare, are mostly fictionalized.
But it really is so fun to read. While Dresden is central to the book, it covers the extent of Billy's whole life as he goes to optometry school, marries the school owner's daughterValencia, is abducted by the Tralfamadorians, wanders and is transported as a POW in Germany, among other things. One quick episode describes a morphine-induced dream Billy has after being injured in the war. He imagines himself in a garden with giraffes: "Billy was a giraffe, too. he ate a pear. It was a hard one. It fought back against his grinding teeth. It snapped in juicy protest." Or the one that goes, "Billy heard Eliot Rosewater come in and lie down. Rosewater's bedsprings talked a lot about that." Or the way he describes warfare as "the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth anymore." I find these little passages delightful.
And there is so much more than what I've touched on. Billy Pilgrim is such a pleasant character. As the narrator says, "Everything was pretty much all right with Billy." He sort of lets life flow over him. He finds his own existence an inconvenience, although he's not depressed. He doesn't like being around his mother for knowing what she had to go through to bring him to this life. The book is often on banned book lists for some profanity and others interpreted it as anti-Christian or immoral or fatalist. I'm not sure about any of that. I might not agree with Vonnegut on everything, but Billy says something near the end of the book that I like. He says, "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does." Does that mean Vonnegut is saying the terrible tragedy of Dresden is ok? (although he does give the US Army its due explanation as to why it was strategically sound). I think he's talking about how relieving it can be to accept the world around you, or rather, accept things as they happen. You should go and enjoy this book before you die. Even though many people probably don't read it before they die. So it goes.
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