Cinema and literature are full of carefree young women who set out on journeys of self-discovery and sexual awakening, only to discover that the world is ill equipped to appropriately cater for their sort. Too often they are left lonely, jaded and disenchanted or even dead, with the men they encounter made out to be the bad guys. In works such as Emmanuelle, The Story of O, Gia, Scarlet Diva, One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed and Snakes & Earrings the protagonist discovering herself, slowly realizes the power she has over men, normally far older than herself, and how she can manipulate them for personal gain.

The same is true in Diary of a Sex Addict, adapted from Valerie Tasso’s novel Diario de una Ninfomana. Valerie is a French girl who moves to Barcelona, her head already filled with stories by her sexually rampant grandmother. Valerie feels emotionally barren and unable to love, but her animal lust is insatiable. She roams the streets of Barcelona like a ravenous vampire, sleeping with practically every man who crosses her path and director Christian Molina ensures he captures every moan, groan and pelvic thrust.

This is where the problems begin. While the Europeans’ openness to, possibly even a predilection for, sex in their art makes much of the rest of the world blush, it doesn’t automatically make the sex itself artistic and worthy of reassessment. There is a lot of very explicit sex in Diary of a Sex Addict, some of which must have been far harder to fake than simply film for real, but on its own even well-choreographed simulated sex doesn’t make for a good film. Now, I have nothing against pornography as an industry or a form of moviemaking, but a film needs to decide whether it wants to be porn or a proper film that discusses sexuality. If the latter, then the filmmakers need to tell an interesting story with characters an audience can relate to.

Diary of a Sex Addict, as many stories of its ilk, asks its audience to empathize, even sympathize, with heroines completely devoid of emotion and who have detached themselves from reality. These women are emotional black holes and attempting to care about them is exhausting and depressing. When Valerie thinks she has found love, it comes as no surprise that her rich benefactor is, in fact, a possessive control freak. Or when she flirts with being a high-class escort she seems genuinely heart-broken when her favourite client views her as nothing more than a plaything.

My fear is that the beauty of the actors and the film’s romantic European flavour may seduce the audience into thinking they are watching something more substantial than what is in fact in front of them: Filming bored nymphomaniacs wandering picturesque streets does not equal quality cinema, regardless of how attractive they are or how melodic the accordion on the soundtrack. James Marsh