THE title of Judd Apatow’s latest film is American jargon for an event causing emotional injury to the people involved.

Amy Schumer, who wrote the screenplay and plays the principal character, has acquired a reputation in the US as a stand-up comedienne, exposing her soul and her sex life.

Her screenplay here manifests a talent for observing humour in things that at first glance may not be humorous. Like used tampons, whether eating garlic influences the flavour of semen, that sort of out-of-left-field stuff that polite folk would never discuss (not half they don’t!), exposed with agreeable candour in a plot about a woman whose father convinced her when she was a kid that monogamy is unrealistic.

Amy, thirty-ish, writing for a “men’s” magazine, pleasant-looking rather than pretty, drinks alcohol copiously and takes many men in many beds, never her own. Then meeting sports doctor Aaron (Bill Hader) turns her life on its head.

That could form a formulaic rom-com in which one-line gags flavoured with sexual frankness fall just short of qualifying for an X-rating. Alas, Ms Schumer’s talent for identifying and making good use of the comic power of her themes doesn’t extend to writing a sustained dramatic structure capable of supporting a 125-minute film.

“Trainwreck” is a bitty film that doesn’t interact with our emotions. Its exploration of contemporary New York life visits elements too numerous to list here that a more judicious editing before a foot of film got shot might have done better. That’s regrettable.

Its examination of women’s sexuality would have served both genders better if it had explored beneath that topic’s surface. I wish I could have admired it more.

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