“Why are we embarrassed to admit that we are single,” asks narrator-star Dakota Johnson at the outset of this muddled valentine to self-discovery, when singledom is “when our real life is happening, maybe?” So committed is the film to musing on this point that it eventually hollows out nearly every one of its characters — the earnest lover looking to commit, the couch-crasher desperate to keep the party going, the levelheaded online dater with a helpful algorithm, the rich and doting single father, the self-aware lothario, and the oh enough already — in an effort to keep the reasons for single life going. Somewhere near the end, the dull barrage of observations on modern romance (and sexytimes) sharpens to something approaching a point: there’s a danger to defining yourself entirely by who you’re dating. Except Ms. Johnson — whose display of deadpan comic delivery is the happy surprise here — hasn’t been doing that. At least, not so far as we’ve seen. We’ll just have to take her drunk friend Rebel Wilson's word for it. New York looks fun, though. With Allison Brie, Leslie Mann. Directed by Christian Ditter. (2016) — Matthew Lickona