Rating: 3.8/5
This movie is better than what people give it credit for, especially if you don’t dig into the politics of things and think that this movie is trying to give an opinion about how the sex life of modern adults should be. This movie is The Purge if it was about sex, and its premise goes that after congress passed a law 3 years ago before the movie took place, premarital sex is completely banned except for one specific day of the year. As a result, everyone looks forward to this one day to express their “love for people”; our protagonists, Allie and Owen, are no exception to this. The story follows two split storylines of each Allie and Owen as they both try to find their own love, but on this journey, impediments happen and their plans all go awry and somehow, they keep meeting each other whether if it was to buy the last condom(that was insanely expensive due to price gouging) or going to the police station after being related to a crime. As the story moves on, they gradually discover their love together.
This movie is great when it comes to comedy, I thought some of the jokes were pretty cringe but multiple times I was more than happy to burst out laughing at how ridiculous things got. I think the director tried his best to make the most out of this premise, and even though I do feel all the exposition was dumped right into the audience’s face and there A LOT of logical conveniences such as how Allie and Owen keep encountering each other, I do think everything was in reasonable suspension of disbeliefs(the only part that I cannot forgive is how nobody had thought of saving condoms or buying them ahead of time and they must buy it on the day of the purge.) I thought the ending was great, and the general structure of the movie flowed fairly nicely with a pace that I would say is slightly slower than it should. The chemistry between the two characters was also great especially for Callum Turner who played Owen as he perfectly captured the awkward-but-funny type of character. My biggest complaint for the movie would be that it’s kind of like “Sex: The Movie” as in I think a lot of the sexual actions were really unnecessary such as how Owen’s mom is literally making out with some random guy next door for the sake of it, and in every scene there’s some sort of sexual act going on to further reassure the audience that: “yes, tonight is the ONLY night for this.” Half the time I felt that “yes I get it that it’s the ONLY night, so maybe stop showing me couples doing promiscuous things.”
It’s a good comedy movie, an okay romance movie, and a horrible political message.