At the center of Jack is Charlie (Luke Rollason), a restless young British man craving sexual attention. He goes around with a motley band of weirdos and burnouts of various orientations, all of whom are looking for a companion. Rock (Philip Tomlin) is his gay bestie, and his advice is always questionable. Charlie is content with his relative chastity until Barbie (Angela Sant'Albano) turns up at school. She is a French-Canadian exchange student whose every move causes Charlie to go through a psychosexual meltdown. He'll go to any length to befriend her and win her over. Hilarity ensues.

The plot follows the standard template for this type of fiction. Charlie's buddies all exemplify tropes, as do Barbie and her friend Amber (Saskia West), the hot girl who has been secretly crushing on Charlie the entire time. Embarrassing antics, miscommunications, and the standard "pretending to be gay to get close to the cute girl without getting caught" are all featured in the plot, which was co-written by Elena Conte and Pelayo De Lario (the latter directing). What distinguishes Jack is that Charlie is accompanied by an unusual co-lead — the voice of his penis, Jack (De Lario), who pushes Charlie into his biggest blunders and remarks on the story's happenings.

Jack's advertising slogan is "A story told by a penis," yet after watching the film, it becomes clear how unimportant Jack was to the plot. Jack adds an extra element of wit to the performances, although his contributions rarely improve  the plot. This is all very trite stuff. Charlie's obsession with Barbie causes him to act foolishly; having his penis speak up and emphasize this as much as it can doesn't offer anything new to the conversation. Despite Jack's assertion, "I like Charlie, he gives me lots of love, and we get along really well," Charlie is often caught in the act of masturbation.

Despite the poor execution of the fundamental concept, this is a solid and amusing take on the sex-comedy pattern. Mr. Hand (Luis Mottola), a guidance counselor whose sheer sexual aura arouses Charlie, is a more intriguing addition. Charlie's implied fluidity is a nice change of pace in a genre that frequently focuses heavily on established gender stereotypes. It's not used much, and everything defaults towards the end, but it's still welcome.

The strongest element of Jack is Rollason as Charlie, who portrays the character with a gangly physicality that feels authentic to his age. The facial expressions of Rollason are flawlessly cartoonish, bordering on farcical. Every time he has a flashback to his youth, when his face was disfigured by large braces, he chuckles. For a film that doesn't quite stand out with the unique structural artifice of a talking dick, Jack manages to rely on the most essential element of this genre: a funny, likable protagonist on a voyage you hope ends happily.

Jack is currently available for streaming on Apple tv, Google Play and You Tube Canada