Kevin Smith‘s latest movie has a gimmick with good comic potential, but it is essentially a one-joke movie that is not supported by sufficient character development. There are some good laughs, but in the newly resurgent sub-genre of romantic-comedy-as-sex-comedy, it does not live up to the archetypal The 40 Year Old Virgin. This is not for lack of effort on the part of Seth Rogan as Zack, Elizabeth Banks as Miri, or Smith’s directing. Rather it is the one-note script. Rogan’s dialogue also seems to be permanently set to a volume level twice that of everyone else, which is occasionally grating.

The gimmick of the movie, as stated in the title, is that the platonic couple Zack and Miri, broke, decide to raise money by making a pornographic movie. They come to this idea in a reasonable way, but it’s not clear why they think it is a good idea for them to actually perform in the movie. Not surprisingly, it is not a good idea. Also, Banks’ Miri is too glamorous and pretty to be plausible as either someone desperate enough to make a pornographic movie or to find Zack’s blustery underachiever to be her soulmate, especially after a decade of cohabitation has left them totally uninterested in each other. And so ultimately Zack and Miri make a funnier porno (with one shriekingly funny and shocking moment) then than they do a satisfying romantic couple.