This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Electronic Chastity Belt
Turned Off One Night
Plot Overview
On a slow day Congress
passed the Chastity Mandate harking back to earlier times when sex
was confined to marriage. As a political concession an exception
was made allowing free sex one night a year. We see two
inexperienced broads in the White Horse Tavern talking
themselves into making this night “meaningful,”
Congress having implemented the will of the people. Think
along the lines of writer John Okada:
She was around seventeen with little bumps on her chest which the sweater didn't improve and her lips heavily lipsticked a deep red. She said “Hi” to him and did not have to say look at me, I was a kid when you saw me last but now I'm a woman with a woman's desires and a woman's eye for men like you. (23)
One of the dainty White
dames returns from a visit to the John with her brutally black
pickup in tow. He feeds her a line about being a prince from the
African country of Sierra Leone, come to America. Okay. There is
actually an historical precedent when its King Naimbana in 1791
sent his son, Prince John Frederic, to England to receive a western
education. Returning by boat after two years of study the prince
came down with malaria and died. He had become a devout Christian
in the meantime but could not bring himself to forgive
those who impugned the character of blacks.
Our Congress has since implemented
laws judging a man by his character, not by his skin color. In
1NO Reyton Labs has
developed a biosensor patch that's embedded in the wrist. It
displays green for marrieds allowing them to copulate, and red for
singles who are forbidden—except for the night in question
when theirs turn green, too. Martin Luther King Jr. was a known
womanizer on the road whose skin patch would have been often
red active in bed, thus allowing a negative judgment of him to be
made by skin color. Kinky Friedman writes:
Martin Luther King was given to fooling around a bit, apparently, in his extramarital area. So the [FBI] pursued him relentlessly and got his whole life on tape. They'd bug his hotel rooms when he was on the road and come up with some gem like: “Oh, Martin, your dick is so big!” Then they'd call his wife and play the tape into the phone. (205)
While the camera tours a
backdrop of debauchery & opportunism worthy of FBI files, the
main plot focuses on two characters: Yuppie pizza shop owner Owen
(Callum Turner) is given his freedom for the night (“This
dog's gonna hunt”) by his girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke)
who wants to sow some wild oats herself. Unmotivated
pharma jingles crooner Allison “Allie” (Monica
Barbaro) is pushed out the door (“If there's one night for
it,”) by her lesbian friend (“it's tonight”) who
is baby sitting at price-gouging rates—gays get a different
deal than straights. Allie is a tall glass of water while Owen is
a hard lump of ice. Their paths converge, more than once. Will
anything meaningful happen?
Ideology
For nothing to happen is okay. “It is good,” the apostle Paul says in First Corinthians, “for a man not to touch a woman.” Hugh Heffner completes this thought with, (Rom. 7:18) “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” He concludes that Paul is uptight about sex, but we should be free to enjoy it, whence the Playboy Philosophy. Christians, however, go with Paul's injunction to, (Rom. 13:14) “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” For those with ordinary sexual desires Paul advises, (1Cor. 7:2) “to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.” Please note marriage is ♂–♀ hetero.
Paul
advises the widow, (1Cor. 7:39)
“The wife is bound by the law as long as her husband liveth;
but if her husband be dead, she is at liberty to be married to whom
she will; only in the Lord.” The Jews had a custom called
levirate marriage. If a woman's husband being an eldest brother
died and they were childless, she was obligated to marry his
younger brother, or in a pinch some other near kinsman, to continue
the former's line. She was in a sense still part of her ex's
family. The Jews in Corinth had asked the apostle Paul if any of
that carried over to Christianity, and he replied no, that the
widow had as open season on men as did a single girl. “Only
in the Lord” means having put Him on, she was required to
refrain from fulfilling the lusts of the flesh. That might be
hard to do if she were on loving terms with her ex's brother(s) in
which case it is but a small step to sexual intimacy. Although
levirate marriage is not so common today, we get an intimation of
this issue in this movie that illustrates its dynamic. Owen and Allie are
on “parallel tracks” but “not together” per se. It
would be but a small step, but they are not obligated.
A
secular government instituting Christian practice but with serious
exception is an example for Paul's saying for the church to, (2Cor. 6:14) “Be ye not unequally
yoked together with unbelievers: ...” He's addressing
Christians as a group with the plural “ye,” not the
singular “thou” he used to address individual marriage
decisions earlier. Modern Bible translations using
“you” for both singular & plural are apt to leave
readers confused. When Allie takes the stage to sing at a private
party, she imagines the whole crowd swaying to her song, but in
reality it is only Owen who hears it. Excessive imagination is used
when applying Paul's injunction meant for a Christian body of
believers over to an individual who is free in this matter.
Production Values
“” was directed by Will Gluck. It was written by Travis Braun. It stars Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner and Charlie Gillespie. Turner and Barbaro as leads knocked it out of the park. The whole cast was great.
MPA rated it R for sexual material, language and brief nudity. The plot is inherently funny. The music is catchy. The setting is NYC dormant. Runtime ≈ 1¾ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Without direct mention of religion the plot showcases Christian values and unwholesome compromise. That's more than a lot of movies do. It can entertain saints and sinners alike.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three and a half stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Friedman, Kinky. The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. Print.
Okada, John. No-No Boy. Copyright © 1976 by Dorothy Okada. Seattle and San Francisco: Combined Asian American Resources Project, Inc., 1977. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org