The Sex Purge Movie Wasn't As Bad As You Might Expect
Two New Yorkers search for love on the one night of the year when pre-marital sex is legal.
You may or may not of heard of the sex purge movie, but I feel like it has broken through into the main stream a little. The premise is just like you might imagine. The government passes a mandate where premarital sex is illegal except for one night a year. Like you, I thought this concept was dumb as shit. I gotta say, though, I was slightly charmed by this movie! It's hard go over without spoilers, though, so look out ahead.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The movie revolves around two people: Callum Turner's 'Owen', who is a born-and-bred New Yorker that is inexplicably the most English looking man alive, and Monica Barbaro's Allie. They keep running into each other on the one night a year that people can have sex, initially looking for other people before realizing that they should hook up with each other. If you're wondering how the anti-sex mandate here works, everyone in the country gets a tattoo. There is a bio sensor in it that is green if you are allowed to have sex (you're married OR it's sex night) and red if you're single.
Through the first two acts of this movie, I have to admit that I was charmed! Capturing a little NYC magic on location, Barbaro is awesome and, if you buy in, you can have some fun with the concept. The same could be said about that with 'The Purge', which is a decent movie! However, it falls apart FAST in the third act by getting super repetitive and not knowing how to land the plane.
The whole movie shows you people bitching about the mandate. "Fuck this fascist government!" "You can't control our bodies!" "I hate the big brother state!". ou see some politicians on TV talking about how successful the mandate is in eliminating STDs, teen pregnancy etc and returning "morality" to the USA. But if you think the big lesson at the end is the main characters saying FUCK THE GOVERNMENT, LIBERTY OR DIE, you'd be wrong.
Instead, they say "We can't let the government win. So instead of having sex before the day ends, lets spend the next year getting to know each other." Motherfucker, THAT'S WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS!!!!! It's like going on a rant about the surveillance state and then installing a flock camera in your bedroom. I just don't understand the thinking there.
I think the only issue I have with this movie other than the third act is that Callum Turner is not built to play Americans. He is tailor-made to star in all the successor kingdom movies to Bridget Jones, replacing the likes of Grant and Firth. When I see him in a movie like this or in 'Masters of the Air' where he plays a guy from Wisconsin that sounds like he's from Brooklyn, it just makes me mad. He is the most English looking man alive outside of Josh O'Connor, play some English people!
I can't say it's the worst movie in the world because of the first two acts, but I feel like the bones were there for something better.