"Finish the Night": The architect of romantic comedies has done it again
Will Gluck, who directed "Anyone But You", returns with "Finish the Night" - and this time it also looks promising: the new romantic comedy, starring Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro, is a film that is all about great fun. At first, it toys with the viewers, then it surrenders to patterns - and the big surprise comes precisely from the soundtrack.
Are the glory days of the romantic comedy returning? If you weigh the number of genre films hitting cinemas and home screens, alongside viewing data and revenues in recent years, it turns out they absolutely are. It's not that rom-coms died, but in an era of superheroes and large-scale epics filled with digital effects, they were simply pushed to the margins of streaming. The renewed demand for romantic comedies reached a peak in 2024 with "Anyone But You", which polarized critics but was embraced by viewers, grossing over 200 million dollars.
The hit starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell was directed by Will Gluck, whose new film, "Finish the Night", was released in theaters over the weekend. The tremendous success of "Anyone But You" helped position Gluck as an architect of romantic comedies, and this time too, it seems, he has a promising horse. The big question is whether he will win. The beauty of "Finish the Night" lies in the fact that it operates according to accepted genre rules while playing with them intelligently. It will be interesting to see how it is received by an audience that loves cheese and kitsch. There is no genre more formulaic than the romantic comedy, but Gluck proves it is possible to take it outside its comfort zone while keeping it within accepted boundaries.
The plot's starting point places characters in an amusing position: an alternative, puritanical America where single men and women are forbidden from having sex—except for one night a year, when everyone is horny and the supply of condoms runs out quickly. At the center is Owen, a New York pizzeria owner played by Callum Turner, an "it boy" in the making. He plans a romantic evening with his girlfriend (Maya Hawke) that is supposed to end in a marriage proposal and scorched sheets. But she blocks him and decides to look for herself in the neighbor's bed. At the same time, Ellie—played by Monica Barbaro, who is climbing another step toward stardom—moonlights as a jingle singer for medical ointments and dreams of becoming a real singer. After her friend abandons her at a party, she goes on a nightly journey in search of a man who is supposed to redeem her from her horniness.
Thematically, the subtext of "Finish the Night" does not pretend to be too sophisticated, asking a simple question: is sex a factor that defines a relationship? This is a banal, clichéd question that has always characterized the genre, so there is no big surprise here. But the film's elegant engagement with this question positions it as one that may also be suitable for an audience that does not necessarily love the genre. This is a smart move, testifying to the necessary flexibility of the romantic comedy and how it has been engineered over the years to suit different audiences. "Finish the Night" embraces this flexibility, becoming a hybrid film that combines adventure and romance, and between them, a sexy and truly funny comedy. Travis Braun's script is studded with winning gags, intelligent humor, and a bit of surprising sophistication.
One of the surprises is actually the soundtrack. Between songs, an amusing cover slips in—one of the jingles Ellie recorded for a medical product advertisement. It adds a layer of simple but smart humor, embedded completely organically in the film's DNA. Bottom line, there is precise thinking here about almost every detail, and therefore, even without the title "romantic," this film functions beautifully as a comedy pure and simple.
One can argue about the quality of "Anyone But You," but not about the chemistry between Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney. This time, instead of Powell and Sweeney, we have Barbaro and Turner, who already starred last year in the comedy "Forever." The chemistry between them is perhaps not the hottest thing here (that title is reserved for the skimpy dress Barbaro wears), but it works well and holds the film at the required romantic level throughout. "Finish the Night" toys with the viewer, takes turns, and breaks expected patterns—but in the third act, it surrenders to familiar dictates and compresses itself back into the worn-out stencil of the genre. It prefers to be a crowd-pleaser instead of a horny troublemaker, leading to a slightly disappointing ending. But this tax can be deducted, and the pettiness and cynicism left aside. It is truly a film that is all about great fun.
