Sleeping With Other People

Taking a slightly more scenic route down a generally familiar path, Sleeping With Other People is marginally more inspired and original than most other raunchy romantic comedies these days, but not in a way that makes a lasting impact next to its genre predecessors.

Several one-liners in hit the mark, although the acerbic screenplay by director Leslye Headland (Bachelorette) seems reluctant to stray from formula or offer any meaningful insight into contemporary relationships.

The film opens with an amusing flashback sequence that’s certainly not your average meet-cute. It introduces Jake (Jason Sudeikis) and Lainey (Allison Brie) as college students who take each other’s virginity on the rooftop of a dormitory at Columbia before going their separate ways.

More than a decade later, they cross paths when both are struggling to find the right match. Both of them apparently still have feelings but don’t want to commit to monogamy, so they agree to a friendship with certain platonic conditions.

They’re each doing as the title implies, Jake with his demanding boss (Amanda Peet) and Lainey with a sleazy therapist (Adam Scott) who’s been her crush since college. Other diversions are meant to convince both the characters and the audience that they’re not right for one another.

Sleeping With Other People contains some scattered big laughs based largely on the awkwardness of its characters and scenarios. The dialogue sparks to life in offbeat ways — “You have a strong vocabulary and look dynamite in a tank top,” Jake says to Lainey at one point.

Everyone has commitment issues, yet it’s a credit to the performances that we sympathize with them despite their desperation and vulnerability, and their tendency to mask that with a parade of empty hook-ups and one-night stands.

There’s lots of bawdy talk leading to the climax, such as when Jake and Lainey negotiate a “safe word” for their relationship without sexual connotations, or when they discuss bedroom technique using an empty bottle of green tea as a prop.

However, much of that banter feels forced rather than authentic. As the film strains to be hip and clever, the fate of the characters becomes inconsequential along the way.

Rated R, 101 minutes.