There’s an adage that goes, “People are rarely not weird about sex.” Don’t worry about looking it up. Just trust us on this one. One Night Only and the reactions it’s inspired have clearly demonstrated the number of specific and varied ways people can be weird about the beast with two backs.

To those unaware, this is the movie that everyone has taken to calling “The Sex Purge” or something similar. There is a lot of lore and rules, dropped with surprising effortlessness by director Will Gluck working from Travis Braun’s script. However, they had a feature-length film to give it to you, and I’ve got just like 1600 words. Yeah, we’re running long on this one. So, we are going to go bullet point speed round here.

– Three years ago, in an alternate universe, Congress passed a law outlawing premarital sexual intercourse colloquially known as The Mandate.

– While elder millennials and younger have all been raised with the notion that sex isn’t just penetrative, here it is. Think seventh-grade sex ed: the only sex anyone is worried about here is penetrative and oral.

– To enforce the law, every adult now has a subcutaneous bio sensor. On the surface, it looks like a small wrist tattoo. For married folk, the tattoo is always green. For the unmarried, it’s red. If two reds start having sex, the sensor will read their physical arousal and hormone levels, “know,” and dispatch law enforcement.

– Every year, there is a 12-hour-long exemption period where the unmarried can go at it like bunnies. The rules are there are no rules! Except you must use condoms if a penis is involved. So I guess there’s one rule. How will it be known people are using condoms? Who knows?!

There are numerous issues here, from the huge potential for false positives to affairs to sexually active teens. If they bounce you out of the film, that makes total sense. I’d encourage you to skip the whole thing, though, because those logical gaps never stop, and the answers provided are far from satisfactory.

On the third annual exemption day, Pizza Restaurateur Owen (Callum Turner, becoming a reliable hand in the rom-com market) has a plan. He and his girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke) have been together long enough that they know what they are missing: the 364 days a year they can’t bone. While others have cynically gotten married to have legal slap and tickle, Owen’s a romantic. He’s going to pop the question this year because he loves Malika and wants the whole package. In our world, her accepting would mean a year of wedding planning before they can legally bang it out whenever the desire arises. In Chastity World though, there are suggestions that the runway from engagement to ceremony has shortened considerably. It’s a moot point anyway though as she has other plans. Namely the guy in their building.

Elsewhere in New York, commercial jingle singer Allie (Monica Barbaro) and her friend Jacinta (King Princess) pledge to not just look for an easy lay but rather someone with year-round potential. That lasts about three minutes when Jacinta ditches for the pleasures of the flesh with self-professed prince Tejan (Okieriete Onaodowan). When Allie retreats to spend the night in her apartment, her roommate Arya (Quintessa Swindell) pushes her into a tiny dress and sounds her back out into the Big Apple. Soon, Owen and Allie can’t stop running into each other as they look for their one-night stand.

There’s so much to dive into here that where to start is a little mind-boggling. Let’s start with this: as a movie taken entirely on its own merits without any real-world context or baggage, it’s pretty good. Turner and Barbaro have excellent chemistry from the jump. It’s so good, in fact, it feels baffling how they don’t notice it too. Like their chemistry, their physical location also elevates their misadventures. New York isn’t a “character” here, thankfully, and its geography will drive pedantic locals mad. However, Cinematographer Yaron Orbach shoots the film in a way that lends the location tactility and weight. The night feels like it is unfolding in a real place. As hard as so much of the movie’s reality is to solve, its physical location never feels false.

It is also frequently funny. Solid recurring jokes last long enough to snag laughs but don’t overstay their welcome. The cameos, including past stars of Will Gluck-directed films, are deployed smartly throughout, largely earning laughs for more than just “oh I know them!” moments. The pop needle drops that turn out to be Allie’s commercial jingle remixes are note-perfect. They repeatedly trick you into thinking it is another vaguely triumphant ballad before the punchline arrives.

Sadly, there’s still the film’s politics. They are extremely messy. This is an anti-sex law that’s also really concerned about people practicing safe sex, for one. Try to think of any lawmaker who has ever argued, for instance, against compulsory sex education but for condom dispensers in the bathrooms.

In fact, they are so messy they would be intriguing if it felt like the movie were doing them on purpose. For instance, One Night Only could be a pretty damning indictment of slacktivism. Scenes are littered with “REPEAL” signs. There is an upcoming opposition concert. Otherwise, though, no one seems to be doing anything. No sexual speakeasies, if you will, no protest orgies, no conscientious objectors who refuse to enforce the law. The closest we get to an activist is an old man who apparently refuses to use condoms.

Other intriguing but largely unpursued ideas include how queer people fit into this. Arya mentions that she and other people in the community are working around it, as they have often had to throughout human history, but that’s it. Anti-obscenity laws tend to come down hardest on minorities before they touch cis white folk, so surely Arya wouldn’t just be shrugging at this whole thing?

There are some interesting glimpses at fallout. The rampant commercialism associated with the One Night is clever and makes total sense. People’s inevitable grossness, too. While steering clear of the darkest elements—sexual assault would undoubtedly be a factor—it points to scam artists waiting to use victims’ horniness against them. Or how bad pickup artists would be when they think a. tonight is a sure thing and b. this is the only day all year they’re trying to pick someone up.

My favorite bit in this area is when a seemingly sensitive artist type reveals his true self when sex seems imminent. First, he admits a certain fondness for the Mandate and its unintended sexual charge. But the real showcase is when he begins to cheerfully declare he’s going to fuck a woman’s face. And to be very clear, he’s doing it thinking it is cute, not in the midst of mutual kinky dirty talk. Moments like that suggest a film that could’ve played with the premise in a lot deeper, more interesting ways while still being fundamentally a rom-com. Alas.

And now to the ending. Spoilers from here forward.

I think this is where a lot of the frustration with the film will settle. There are three outcomes, basically. First, Owen and Allie can sleep together during the One Night. Second, they can decide not to, either because they choose other people (the bittersweet end) or to deepen their connection before they have sex (the “romantic” end). Third, they miss out on the 12 hours because of their one crazy night and decide to fuck anyway because love is love and damn the fascists. That’s the one I would’ve liked to see, but it was not to be.

So, the third one is out. Let’s talk the first.

Like it or not—I personally don’t—there is a bias against one-night stands in romantic comedies. Sex comedies are good with it, certainly. But romantic comedies? Not so much. The closest you can find are films in which the couples sleep together early on, and the rest of the movie is about getting them past that to get the characters together. Gluck’s previous movie, Anyone But You, is one such film. Two Night Stand is another. In both, the first sexual encounter is a problem. It’s a barrier to be overcome, not a springboard to further intimacy. The rest of the movie is about “fixing” that initial mistake so they can connect properly and romantically. But One Night Only isn’t structured to be that kind of story.

As for the second, a standard rom-com move is passing on the sure thing for something deeper. You see it, for example, in The Sure Thing. For people my age, American Pie featured a couple who opt not to have sex prom night after an entire film about having sex on prom night. And their relationship is the only non-comedic intact one when credits roll. In the context of certain films, it works as it indicates a willingness to abandon a “quest” for something else. Not healthier, necessarily, but different in a way that demonstrates the characters are taking intimacy seriously.

Unfortunately, in the context of One Night Only, that choice means something very different. What reads as romantic is not only baffling, but an acquiescence to fascism. Regardless of the film’s strange politics and its general desire to handwave them, they still exist. And the biggest point is that the US government took away people’s right to unmarried sex. That’s the whole premise. You can’t ignore it when it’s the movie’s whole deal. It painted itself into an impossible corner. It renders an otherwise fairly standard ending an act of political cowardice.

One Night Only would like to buy you a drink in theatres everywhere August 7.

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