We’re at that time of year, following the Academy Awards but before the start of Australian film festival season, when independent film distributors release all kinds of oddities – films not necessarily bad, sometimes very good, but a bit harder to package or sell than the preceding Oscar glam mob.

Such is this quirky New York comedy-drama written and directed by John Turturro, best known, of course, as an actor. He stars as a hard-up, middle-aged man persuaded by his former bookstore-owner employer (Woody Allen dialling up his standard schtick) to try renting out his sexual services.

Photographed in rich autumnal russets, and accompanied by a smoky Gene Ammons jazz soundtrack, this is often mildly pleasurable and full of quirky details that make it perfectly easy to watch. Who knew Brooklyn had an Orthodox Jewish cop squad using bicycles as well as cars?

The male leads are given strong support by Liev Schreiber, playing a lovesick cop; Sharon Stone and Sofia Vergara as sharp clawed sex tigers; and, cast right out of left field, Vanessa Paradis as a chaste Jewish widow. But Allen’s pimp patter sounds retrieved from his wastepaper basket, and in the end these shenanigans are much ado about little.