Review – Thanks for Sharing

Everyone is pretty much on the cusp of falling to pieces, is the overwhelming message from Thanks For Sharing, an ensemble drama-comedy about coping and addiction. Adam, Mike and Neil are sex addicts working the twelve step program, mentoring each other against the dangers of indulgent antisocial behaviour such as compulsive masturbation and sexual assault. But as we come to meet the minor characters, they all come out with problematic behaviours of their own, from pill addiction to compulsive exercising to woefully one-dimensional daddy issues.

It gets almost comical when Mike’s unnamed wife, played by Joely Richardson, intimates that maybe it is her own fault that she ended up with an alcoholic, sex addicted husband – she has an addiction to assholes, perhaps.

Despite the character and narrative problems, though, the comedy makes for pretty good fare. Alecia Moore, aka P!nk, gives the least convincing performance, but even then she is still charismatic enough that her scenes are enjoyable to watch. Tim Robbins, Josh Gad and Mark Ruffalo, meanwhile, work hard to make their farcical characters seem relatable, and Gwyneth Paltrow leaves a solid impression as Ruffalo’s love interest. There’s the talent here that this film could be quite good, if the characters were written so that they weren’t just hitting all the predictable archetypes. But to distract us from these shortcomings we’re given plenty of eye candy: Paltrow rocks the garter belts and black underwear, while Ruffalo has his shirt off more than he did as The Hulk. If you’re in the mood for a playful rom-com which does little more than hint at profundity, then Thanks for Sharing is not the worst thing you could see in a darkened cinema.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQcr66k-gAM&w=400]