The town council, at the insistence of the female lead, forces the owner of a closed down drive-in theater (her high school sweetheart) to make a good faith attempt at opening it in the middle of December as a test to see if it can make money or if he should be allowed to sell it to developers that will tear it down and build a distribution center.

That is so far fetched and seems almost mean of the female lead to force him to try to make it work so he can't sell. She isn't trying to buy it, the town's people aren't moved out of nostalgia to start seeing movies when it opens.

Keep in mind that the drive-in, is in pristine shape, everything is freshly painted, clean and in perfect working condition.

With that as the backdrop for the entire movie it makes it really difficult to get into. What happens in writing meetings? Is nobody allowed to question ideas like this?

They could have easily had it be where the town was going to sell the property to the developer to cover owed taxes and he has to make enough money to pay the taxes by the start of the new year and his ex, who still loves the drive-in agrees to help just because she has so many fond memories there. Boom, I just fixed your terrible script.