Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s 1774 epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther was one of the most influential books of its age, in part responsible for launching the Romantic movement, shaping ideas about the novel itself, and inspiring some of the earliest instances of copycat suicide. These days of course, it doesn’t have anything like the cultural influence that it had in its heyday, eclipsed by Goethe’s later plays, poetry and scientific endeavours. So hurrah for the film-makers behind this sweet Canadian-British co-production for their valiant, quixotic efforts to relaunch Werther for the youth of today. Writer-director José Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço resets the book’s love triangle among the well-to-do in modern-day Toronto, turning it into a kind of wan romantic comedy: part Goethe, part Whit Stillmanesque farce, part shop window for rising stars Douglas Booth and Iris Apatow.

Booth, with his fleshy sensuality, makes for a reasonably sympathetic, puppyish Werther, a young man of modest means adrift in the big city with his best friend, Paul (Jaouhar Ben Ayed), whom he ditches once he meets cultured heiress Charlotte (an engaging Alison Pill). Lovestruck, Werther crashes her birthday party and they end up dancing the night away, their shared chemistry obvious. But alas, Charlotte is engaged to kind but dull lawyer Albert (Patrick J Adams). Somehow, Werther manages to infiltrate their domestic menage, attracting the attentions of Charlotte’s younger sister Sissy (Apatow).

That triangulated configuration is all roughly congruent with the original book. But the scenes where the couple do shots, Werther likens the smell of linden trees to male ejaculate, and when he lowers the stuck zip on Charlotte’s dress with his teeth at a boutique sample sale, are Avelino Gilles Corbett Lourenço’s own invention. That latter is a very sexy scene, one of the best in a film that feels short on real passion, but big on banter and sharp suiting.

• I’ve Never Wanted Anyone More is on digital platforms from 3 February.