Why Not Now?

A frantic exploration of temporal urgency and the comedic absurdity of human hesitation, 'Why Not Now?' functions as a kinetic manifesto for the procrastinating Everyman of the early Roaring Twenties. The narrative trajectory follows a protagonist—portrayed with a jittery, high-strung elegance by Eddie Lyons—who finds himself ensnared in a web of domestic and romantic delays. Rather than a linear progression, the film operates as a series of escalating vignettes where the impulse to act is perpetually thwarted by the very social mechanisms meant to facilitate progress. Robert A. McGowan’s screenplay eschews the heavy-handed moralizing of its contemporaries, opting instead for a surrealist tilt where the ticking clock becomes a character in its own right. The plot unfurls through a labyrinth of missed connections and slapstick misunderstandings, ultimately questioning whether the titular inquiry is an invitation to liberation or a harbinger of inevitable chaos. It is a work of celluloid restlessness, capturing a moment in cinematic history where the grammar of comedy was pivoting from pure physicality to a more sophisticated, character-driven psychological farce.