'Thanks for Sharing' funny but shallow -- and goes on too long.

• Author: Rooney, David
• Position: Living - Movie review

Byline: David Rooney

Unstarred review A Roadside Attractions release

Rating: R for language and some strong sexual content

Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes

LOS ANGELES -- With a subject as specific as sex addiction, comparisons to 2011's ''Shame'' are inevitable. That dark drama was a deep-probe character study, intensely focused on a man consumed by his cravings. By contrast, ''Thanks for Sharing'' is an ensemble piece juggling humor with sober observation of three men intent on overcoming their dependence on the pleasures of the flesh. Making a technically polished directing debut, screenwriter Stuart Blumberg ("The Kids Are All Right'') has in essence crafted the date-night version of the sexaholic's confessional.

While it doesn't crawl under the skin the way ''Shame'' did, this serio-comedy, with its name cast, offers a glossy portrait of New York as a playground of visual stimuli.

All of that keeps ''Thanks for Sharing watchable and mildly entertaining, even if it's 15-20 minutes too long. What stops the film from being more satisfying, however, is a problem with the way the central character's arc takes shape, and a key piece of miscasting. Bashing Gwyneth Paltrow has become a tired, easy sport that anyone can play. But her preening performance in an inconsistently drawn role here is a major intrusion.

A smart, soulful environmental consultant celebrating five years in recovery, Marc Ruffalo's Adam is carefully set up to give the film a core of emotional integrity. When his sponsor, Mike (Tim Robbins), insists it's time for him to bite the bullet and start dating again, he conveniently meets Paltrow's Phoebe at a foodie bug-tasting evening. She's a cancer survivor and fitness fanatic whose previous boyfriend's alcoholism gave her an aversion to addicts.

In a staggeringly miscalculated scene, Phoebe processes the unsettling news and then gives the relationship another shot by stripping down to fetish lingerie and demonstrating her lap-dancing skills on a stunned Adam. While this reads as insensitive, sadistic, stupid or all three, Blumberg and co-scripter Matt Winston justify the behavior by having Phoebe say: ''I'm a very sexual...