Of course, we understand that depicting behavior in a film isn't the same thing as endorsing it, but Duncan (an emphatically smarmy Brendan Patricks) is such a callow twit, and the film adopts his point-of-view so completely that My Last Five Girlfriends quickly becomes an unpleasant viewing experience. It's not just him. Julian Kemp's very loose adaptation of Alain de Botton's well-regarded mock philosophical treatise, On Love: A Novel, is hyper-directed and shrill. The conceit of presenting Duncan's romantic life as a theme park feels tired and shallow, but the real problem here is that all the gratuitous directorial flourishes detract from any genuine emotional connection the viewer might make to Duncan, and the women in his life are given short shrift. Imagine High Fidelity as directed by Guy Ritchie, and instead of John Cusack, it's a narcissistic yuppie. (The good news: the British accents have been restored!) The blizzard of misguided animations and half-baked ideas keeps one occupied, as babysitting a hyperactive toddler might, but it makes empathy next to impossible. If this is what the inside of Duncan's mind is like, I'd just as soon get out and never come back. It's a shame, because there are moments in the film that indicate some degree of potential here. Naomie Harris is very talented actress, but we're never really given a chance to understand Gemma, because Duncan doesn't. There's a brief moment--a single shot, really--late in the dissolution of their relationship that captures a genuine sense of painful resignation. It's quietly poignant moment, and it's all the more heartbreaking because it's a rare moment of calm insight in this otherwise antic and irritatingly noisy explosion of sitcom level observations about romance.