Sincerity does not a good movie make. Duane Hopwood, the melancholy tale of a way down-on-his luck, alcoholic, Atlantic City casino security guard involved in a custody battle, seems sincere in spades yet fails to yield a single memorable scene. Not that the director, Matt Mulhern, and his leading man—"Friends" star David Schwimmer playing against type with conviction—can be faulted for trying.

Set during a dismal Atlantic City winter, the film opens with a family-man musical montage of what seems a happy marriage for Duane and Linda Hopwood (a gauntly effective Janeane Garofalo). By the song’s end, heavy drinker Duane has been dumped by the family and soon finds himself with a DUI and a sleeping daughter in tow, and a heap of trouble. The bad luck continues from there. A judgment error causes Duane to lose his job before setting up house with spirited co-worker Anthony (Judah Friedlander), who dreams of becoming a superstar comic. While gay neighbor Fred (Dick Cavett) invites him to Thanksgiving dinner, Duane attempts a romance with waitress Gina (Beautiful Creatures’ Susan Lynch), which goes nowhere. He sees his daughters on occasion but mom’s new boyfriend Bob (John Krasinski), dispensing unpractical fitness advice to an eight-year-old with body issues, forces tensions to rise.

It sounds like the stuff of gritty drama, but despite one public melt down scene, which Schwimmer nails perfectly, there’s something aggravating about Duane’s hangdog approach to dealing with life (or not dealing with it). And the film doesn’t play fair with its central relationship between Duane and Linda, who seem to still care deeply for each other though their war over the children paints Linda into a vindictive corner that the great actress Garofalo doesn’t enter in her sympathetic performance.

Like much of the film, theirs is a relationship that makes no sense, though it contributes the film’s best moments. Even though she drags out unfair evidence against him in court, which causes him to lose any visitation or custody of his children, and then decides to pack up and take them away from him to another state, they still behave together like old friends. They longingly look into each other’s eyes through their verbal jousts. There’s something real between them, but it’s in their performances and not in the writing.

Duane Hopwood is clearly about coming to terms with consequences as a result of your own behavior, and accepting responsibility and blame for where you’ve ended up. Got it. But those themes searching for a character and a movie are lost on this picture. Mulhern is clearly out of his element when it comes time to wrap up the complicated dilemma Duane faces. So he just doesn’t deal with it at all. Instead, there’s a silly music video tacked on to the end, a feel-good Thanksgiving montage where everyone miraculously "snaps out" of their destructive cycles and Duane is apparently able to re-join the living. When people complain about Hollywood endings, they need look no further.