Starring Dakota Johnson and Rebel Wilson. Rated 14A. Now playing.

How to Be Single makes numerous self-inoculating shout-outs to Sex and the City, Friends, and even Seinfeld. But the new movie never quite escapes the aura of overfamiliarity.

The book on which it’s based came from an S&TC scripter, also responsible for the Carrie Bradshaw-lite He’s Just Not That Into You. Even so, Single does manage to get off an unexpected number of witty exchanges and features career-solidifying performances from Dakota Johnson and Leslie Mann as unalike sisters adrift in the Big Apple.

The story begins when Johnson’s charmingly naive Alice breaks up with college boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) and moves into the city with big sibling Meg (Mann), an overworked obstetrician currently rethinking her own no-baby policy. At a new paralegal job, Alice is taken under the sweaty wing of colleague Robin (Rebel Wilson, who just can’t not be funny), instantly determined to make the new gal as party-hearty as she is.

Director Christian Ditter (veteran of German kids' TV and the English rom-com Love, Rosie) could have stuck to this trio, but for some reason can’t resist the quartet formula. That’s weird, because fourth subject Lucy (Mad Men’s lively Alison Brie) doesn’t know the others, and her subplot, in which she consistently scares away guys with her too-fervent marriage plans, adds little but time to the almost two-hour movie.

The connecting link is a local bar run by your standard-issue stud muffin (Anders Holm, creator of the Workaholics series), who offers both Alice and Lucy useful insights regarding today’s mating game. With her unfussy comic timing, Johnson really does stand out from the pack. And Mann is much less brittle than what we’ve seen in her Judd Apatow movies—especially after her Meg hooks up with a younger guy, played by Jake Lacy, in a variation on his nice-guy role on Girls.

Where the movie surprises most is in its refreshingly nonjudgmental view of female sexuality, and in its literal interpretation of the title, which turns out to express genuine interest in the agency of its heroine, with or without a dude.