An attempt at an "Edgy Romcom" for men is only slightly less formulaic

Rating: 4/10 (1 October 2013)

The subject is a "Jersey Shore" guido. The stakes are a happy love life. The problem is porn addiction.
Fine. I love the topic of addiction in general because it can present a host of emotional subplots and little machinations on film. The topic immediately reminds me of McQueen's "Shame" - an excellent serious drama on sex addiction in modern life (i.e. webcam porn). But when you position addiction into romcom ("romantic comedy") the end ressult is simplification and belittling of the subject matter to point where it's just annoying. (The film is a bumbling romcom formula and then the solution to a serious problem comes in the last tenth of the film where Levitt's character suddenly realizes that abstaining from porn leaves him insatiable for real life sex.)
The next selling point is the edginess of this romcom. (It's the porn, stupid.) If this came out just 5 years ago I might praise the frank portrayal of porn's appeal to young men, including an internal dialogue of all the benefits of porn vs. real sex. But the topic matter just doesn't seem edgy in 2013. Oh they try though. There are cutscenes of Levitt's porn with booming music at least 30 db higher then the rest of the film's audio.
The third leg of the attempted hat trick doesn't fail completely - but it's definitely not a shining star. We realize how romcoms work. And so does Levitt (who also wrote and directed the film) as evidenced by an ACTUAl sequence where Levitt's character makes fun of his initial love interest's fascination with predictable romantic movies. Womanizing man? Check. Goofy friends? Gudios picking up girls and bragging about said pickups. Check. Meets girl but she doesn't like him at first? Check. He wins her over and changes his A+ womanizing to his friend's chagrin? Check. Relationship problem occurs (porn) and they break up? Check. By then the movie is almost over and Levitt, conscious of his conventionalism suddenly throws away the blueprints. The second love interest shows up (Moore) but we don't have time to learn much about her other than she likes weed and takes a night class. She suggests he try to stop porn. He does. Works. The End. Not exactly satisfying for even romantic movie fans.
I think a goal for this film would be Figgis' "Leaving Las Vegas" with more comedy. In that case it fails. But to be fair that's a very tall order.
Reasons you might still enjoy it: You find porn discussion funny, you loved Jersey Shore culture or you enjoy Levitt's acting skills (which are very good).