20 DATES
An honest, profane dating satire with real moral insight — for adults.
Should You Watch It?
20 DATES is a funny, biting satire of dating in America and the Hollywood movie business. Myles Berkowitz turns his own romantic and professional frustrations into the material, and the film often finds clean, honest laughs by making him the target of its humor.
The movie’s moral vision is mixed. It treats romantic love and professional success as the route to happiness, yet it also recognizes the need for self-sacrifice and the damage sinful desires can do to relationships. That tension gives the comedy more substance than its premise might suggest.
The cost is substantial: strong language, sexual references, alcohol, smoking, and other mature content. Adults who can engage those elements with discernment may find worthwhile observations here; families with children or young teens should choose something else. The practical answer: see it only as an adults-only rental or screening.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESOut-of-work actor and screenwriter Myles Berkowitz decides to film himself dating 20 different women. He hopes the project will help him find true love while also jump-starting his career in Hollywood.
His documentary becomes a comic experiment in romance, ambition, honesty, and the uneasy boundary between real life and entertainment.
Is It Any Good?
Three stars means this is an entertaining, sharply observed comedy with meaningful limitations. The film is described as funny, biting, and hilarious in its send-up of both dating and the movie business. Its clean, honest laughs often come from Myles making himself the butt of the joke.
The humor sometimes turns other people into targets, which complicates the film’s self-aware approach. Still, the movie offers strong moral elements alongside its satire, including insights into romantic relationships and the human condition.
The Worldview
20 DATES reflects a romantic worldview. Myles pursues happiness through his own desires for romantic love and professional success rather than through love for God and divine love for other people.
The film’s treatment of romance is not entirely shallow. It includes remarks about the need for self-sacrifice among romantic couples and recognizes that sinful needs and desires can destroy relationships. Myles also resists pressure to make the project more sensational with models, actresses, and sex, arguing that doing so would compromise its realistic view of dating.
The film’s central weakness is that romance remains the primary answer to life’s emptiness. Scripture gives love a higher order: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Human love matters, but it cannot bear the weight that belongs to love for God.
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Moderately strong romantic worldview where sensual pleasures (romance & success) are the main goal in a man's life, mitigated by moderately strong moral elements, including remarks about the need for self-sacrifice in relationships; 96 obscenities & 5 profanities; minimal slapstick violence, such as cameraman stumbles over fire hydrant; two crude references to oral sex, implied fornication & statement about sleeping with woman; obscured nude photo of woman in her bedroom & longshot of man wearing underwear in window; alcohol use & man visits bars in two brief scenes; smoking; lesbian kiss in sleazy bar protagonist visits that seems to be rebuked; and, man manipulates others, making them the butt of his many jokes, but he also makes himself the butt of his own jokes.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
The film connects happiness with romance and professional success. What changes when we place love for God above every other desire?
Matthew 22:37–39 · Philippians 3:7–8The story recognizes that relationships require self-sacrifice. What does genuine love give up for another person?
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 · Philippians 2:3–4The film suggests that sinful desires can damage relationships. How can confession and repentance begin to repair what selfishness has harmed?
James 1:14–16 · 1 John 1:9When humor makes another person the butt of a joke, what should guide our words?
Ephesians 4:29 · Proverbs 18:21The Final Word
20 DATES is a clever, honest comedy with real insight into romance, selfishness, and the entertainment business. Its strong language and sexual material make it unsuitable for children and young teens, but mature adults may find its moral observations worthwhile. Our answer is WORTH THE TRIP — ADULTS ONLY. For family-friendly alternatives, see.
