THIS clunky and clichéd but not altogether charmless debut coming-of-age film from director Chris Foggin centres on a young man named Jack (Will Poulter) who has plans to take a gap year and go travelling with his childhood best friend Tom (Jamie Blackley) before settling into a law firm job organised by his father.

But after a chance encounter with the beautiful and enigmatic young Evelyn (Alma Jodorowsky), he changes his plans and chooses to spend every minute he can with her and her eclectic friends who are all living a bohemian London lifestyle.

There’s an earnestness to the film that lends it a certain kind of wide-eyed charm, even if it doesn’t come together as you’d hope.

It uses the relatable everyman template as a means for us to experience this, taking us on a journey through the eyes of a naive young man who doesn’t quite know what he wants but knows that he wants it nonetheless.

But for all its preaching about enjoying life, embracing the unknown and going with the flow of youthful spiritedness, it never reaches anywhere near the kind of weighty profoundness found in other, far better stories about transition to adulthood. It sometimes feels like one of those twee stripped down covers of a great song you often get in supermarket Christmas adverts.

Wandering through a threadbare plot that’s lit with a hazy, soft focus cinematography that merely adds to its dramatic weightlessness, the characters are all half-baked stereotypes – from Poulter’s doe-eyed Jack to Cara Delevingne’s free-spirited Viola – and are never given any sort of real depth to make what they’re saying convincing.

There’s no doubting the sincerity, besotted as the film is with the idea of youth, engaging with newfound friends and wanting to be your own person, no matter the consequences. But sincerity is only half the battle with a coming-of-age tale; beyond that this is frustratingly lightweight and forgettable.