Director: Will Gluck
Writer: Travis Braun
Stars: Callum Turner, Monica Barbaro, Ben Marshall
Synopsis: Two New Yorkers search for love on the one night of the year when sex is legal.
We all know the saying, “they don’t make ‘ em like they used to,” but in the case of films like One Night Only, the problem is less that this type of film isn’t made and more that this type of film has devolved into a new form of consumption. The token popcorn fluff romcom used to be the bedrock of every studio system as a key cog in the most plain of entertainment, but it has mostly been relegated to the doldrums of streaming in today’s cinematic climate. For every You, Me and Tuscany that gets a wide theatrical release, there’s a Voicemails from Isabelle or People We Meet On Vacation increasing its shelf life for Netflix. Amongst the romcom spectrum, One Night Only sits within rather unsurprising mechanics despite the wild stir its “sex purge” premise has caused amongst online spaces. You’ll get as many surprising chuckles as you do hard eye rolls, an adequate amount of chemistry from two very attractive leads making the best of what’s on the page, but the film falters more than not since it can’t quite provide consistent laughs or chemistry throughout, much less provide much thought to its needlessly insane synopsis. One Night Only is far from the absolute worst a romcom can be, but it lacks the proper punch to make escalating comedic scenarios funny and runs its few charms quite thin as it plods along.
The film starts with text over New York City stating that three years ago, premarital sex was officially outlawed by the United States. The reasons for this law are mainly kept unexplained by the film itself, but the most important thing to know is that one night per year, single people are legally allowed to have sex again for 12 hours, and for most singles it’s all about getting a dopamine rush of lovemaking before they have to repress for yet another year. Throughout the film, we follow the characters on seemingly parallel paths. Owen (Callum Turner), a pizzeria owner who is having relationship struggles with his girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke) hours before the mandate breaks, and Allie (Monica Barbaro), who works as a singer singing renditions of “A Thousand Miles” for medicine commercials, searching for a true connection on the fateful night. The two get into constant predicaments, rushing against the clock to find who they can have sex with before the night is done, but despite their insistence on not being for each other, Owen and Allie can’t stop crossing paths on their escapades to finally get laid, leading to the two of them slowly wondering if a spark does truly lie between them.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that the ramifications of One Night Only’s central concept are never fully explored, but it only makes the few times where the film delves into the “rules” quite bizarre. There’s the occasional gag making fun of the political reasoning of why the mandate exists via a news broadcast on TV and a whole convoluted enforcement process via bio-censor symbols on your wrist that are supposed to track who is and isn’t married by them being either red or green. It’s funny how much the film ever so slightly builds out its The Purge with sex world since it leads to more ridiculous questions than answers. This, however, wouldn’t matter much as long as the film was funny enough and its romance was sexy enough since the intentions of the premise revolve around silly gags and oneself freeing themselves from the ever-mounting pressures of life sexually. Unfortunately, the film gets about halfway there in both the rom and com.
Granted, there is a decent amount of actual mileage to be gotten from the comedic set pieces in this concept, and director Will Gluck, for better and worse, knows the right strings to pull to provide the most basic amusement in one of them. There’s a stretch on both Owen and Allie’s paths where they’re in search to find a condom (since the mandate requires protection) where the situational comedy is at its sharpest and slapstick and the “will they won’t they” pull is at its funniest.
It’s inherently funny to see situations like having to dig through sewers and pay $200 for seemingly the last condom in the city and testing the situational confines of this concept is where the film is at its funniest, but for every clever visual gag there’s plenty of other groan worthy ones, like Wakanda forever jokes that are years too late and swaths of celebrity cameo moments where the cameo itself is the joke and absolutely nothing else. As the film goes on, it becomes clear that instances of our characters finding themselves naked out in the open after a potential hookup gone wrong or mistaking making things even sillier as an escalation of comedy are about the only ideas for jokes that the film has. It always feels like every other joke needs a bit more raunchiness to it, which the movie is seemingly incapable of providing.
As for the romance, at least unlike a clear weak link in chemistry in Gluck’s Anyone But You, both Turner and Barbaro are charming enough here, and both roll with the constant absurdity on display and having to sell lines implying that their physical features are anything but ethereal. The issue here is that the two actors are having to deliver what is a pretty thoughtless screenplay in nearly every aspect. In all fairness, they do a fairly good job of elevating the film to watchable enough plights within their chemistry but once we reach the common beats of the romcom formula, the film’s energy is already completely spent.
One Night Only is ultimately average enough to be inoffensive even within the ridiculousness of its concept, but it never rises above fairly plain romcom fare since it can’t quite decide whether to dip its toes fully into the numerous implications of its premise or go fully wacky into step pieces of two single people trying to get laid, leading to it growing thin in its exploration of both. There is a place for the forgettable but enjoyable enough romcom in film, and I’d much rather have more movies like One Night Only in theaters than not, but the best way to describe the film’s fate is as an inevitable staple of your airplane cinema to watch on a long flight, which isn’t entirely a bad thing, but it’s not particularly compelling either.
