John Turturro in Fading Gigolo (Millennium Entertainment)

How can a film featuring a renowned cast and led by a well-meaning director come off as so undeniably amateurish? It’s a confounding query that overrides and distracts from Fading Gigolo, John Turturro’s fifth directorial venture. The slumping washout of a film, starring Turturro as a reluctant Casanova, co-stars Vanessa Paradis, Sharon Stone, Sofia Vergara, and the personification of a high-strung curmudgeon, Woody Allen. But despite the litany of A-list contributors, Fading Gigolo falls flat.

From its opening montage, which features archival and idealized ’70s-era New York City footage that appears to have been cycled through at least seven Instagram filters, Gigolo takes viewers out of the narrative before it’s even begun. Turturro and Allen play Fioravante and Murray, respectively, old friends who co-own a Manhattan bookshop. At the film’s outset, the two workmates are disheartened that, due to lack of business, they must close down the shop for good. But the film barely allows a moment to reflect on its sentimental setup before Murray delves into his new idea for a moneymaking enterprise: Fioravante is a good-looking guy, why not pimp him out as a gigolo, with Murray serving as his panderer? Seems like the next logical step for two old-timer literature enthusiasts.

We are meant to buy that Murray could convincingly moonlight as a procurer, evading the notice of his live-in partner (played to subdued hilarity by Jill Scott) and her brood of inquisitive offspring, but also that the women seeking out Fioravante’s intimate company somehow lack the ability to acquire their own unpaid lovers. The film attempts to justify their unfulfilled desires—one has a distant husband, the other has trouble finding a man who knows how to “be a man”—but when these hankering women are portrayed by Stone and Vergara, any believability has all but dissipated. The film strives to make a point about how women are habitually judged—both in film and in life—based exclusively on their sexuality, but sadly, Turturro misses his target here.

The film throws in another subplot when Murray takes his lice-infected youngsters to a medicinal specialist in the Hasidic neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Avigal, played by the softly musing Vanessa Paradis in the film’s solitary poignant performance, is a delicate widow who simply longs to be touched. Murray sets her up with Fioravante, his “healer” friend, and through the gigolo’s gentle caress, Avigal is able to release the pent-up tension and sadness of her dutiful, stifling lifestyle.

Fading Gigolo aims to portray the sizable spectrum of sexuality that exists in our hodgepodge culture, demonstrating that, particularly for women, acceptable methods of displaying and engaging in sexual activities vary immensely. Unfortunately, Turturro’s decision to portray his female characters as over-the-top caricatures is a regrettable misstep. Rather than pointing out the absurdity of confining anyone to a certain set of sexual boundaries, the performances distract us into focusing on how these ridiculous women could have ever come to exist, even in the sordid reality of the film.

And though I won’t fault the film for its conspicuous sexism—because I do believe that the filmmaker intended to make a point with it—the lackluster execution is inexcusable. The cinematography is mediocre at best, replete with lagging pull-focus, inexplicably off-centered camera angles, and awkward use of empty space. Clumsy pacing and lame one-liners permeate the film. Despite the seemingly best intentions, it’d probably be best if this particular Gigolo takes a hint from his title and just fades away.