MOVIE REVIEW: One Night Only

Images courtesy of Universal Pictures

ONE NIGHT ONLY— 4 STARS

LESSON #1: DON’T OVERTHINK SEX— No notable person has been attributed to the quote “don’t overthink sex,” but it feels like a recurring theme for healthy relationships and wellness advice. Bringing it into the realm of movies, creatively filmed movie sex is unrealistic. Real intimacy—the acts, feelings, and everything in between—is messy. On one end, many want the moments to be right, but sometimes sex can be a disposable activity to fulfill mutual carnal needs. With that kind of range, there are ways to explore such expanse with potent concepts. And yet, there are still ways to clumsily overthink it. Will Gluck’s heady new romantic comedy One Night Only finds a daring, silly premise and runs with it to find hilarity and heart within the hedonistic whims.

One Night Only posits a semi-realistic American nation that has been living under a conservative-born federal mandate for three years that sexual acts outside of marriage are illegal and punishable by law. Everyone, married or otherwise, has been branded with a digital wrist tattoo that flags orgasm-triggered hormones and body chemistry levels to the authorities and acts as a green-light/red-light for allowable sexual activity. The goal was to eliminate premarital sex and encourage more good-natured long-term relationships not built on sex. As one on-screen background news pundit puts it later in the film, the ruling government has made it a “badge of honor to be an incel.” Oh yes. They said that. Go ahead and roll those eyes.

The caveat hitch in place is that, you guessed it, for “one night only,” everyone’s tattoos are set to green, allowing protected sexual acts for 12 hours, from 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM the next morning. This supposedly gracious governmental measure of banking horniness for a year is advantageously marketed by all sorts of businesses, from singles bars and hotels to erectile dysfunction meds and condom companies. For citizens over the last three years, this night is virtually a national holiday where usual errands and proper decorum cease for those twelve hours while everyone gets it on, any which way they can. 

LESSON #2: DON’T OVERTHINK THE PREMISE— Entertain the unfathomable layers of One Night Only’s premise for just a moment, nothing more. What would it take for a government to go here with this legality and issue? What kind of society would this kind of mandate create? Imagine the uproar and protests. Within that scope of overarching control, One Night Only feels as implausible as the wildest science fiction, and that’s the point. Like sex, don’t overthink it. Now, place those imagined limits into a romantic comedy. Let it play out and share the riotous fever because the screenplay from kids television writer Travis Braun (Pupstruction and T.O.T.S.) has uncorked all sorts of farcical possibilities. 

Our two matchmaking vessels for One Night Only are a pair of single New Yorkers (a premise this audacious could only take place, for movie purposes, in a liberal stronghold like NYC) named Owen and Allie, played by Eternity heartthrob Callum Turner and A Complete Unknown’s breakout Oscar nominee Monica Barbaro. Owen owns a pizza place in the Bronx and is planning to use the big night to propose to his longtime girlfriend (Maya Hawke of Stranger Things). The fledgling commercial jingle singer Allie is hoping to team up with her bestie (Song Sung Blue’s King Princess) for a night on the town to find worthy conquests and potential keepers. Both have their plans derailed, meet flirtatiously as discarded solo acts with different goals, and keep finding ways to run into each other across the city—often at their worst moments—over the course of the randy night.

LESSON #3: ACCELERATE THE NONSENSICAL— The titillating luster of One Night Only’s premise allows room for situations to get weird and nonsensical. Potential theoretical holes are glossed over for the sake of the setting’s unbridled strangeness happening inside a romantic comedy. With a ticking clock in the background, every pickup line, dating app swipe, hookup situation, and foreplay game is accelerated because the proverbial chase is removed, with the final goal of getting laid being so, for the most part, mutually agreed upon. This freak flag-flying energy removes much of the usual strictness and proper courtship pacing romantic comedies sometimes feel they have to adhere to. Case in point, have your eyes widen and jaws drop at 80s teen queen Molly Ringwald playing Owen’s single mother chomping at the bit to make a special night with her new squeeze, played by, of all people, LeVar Burton, the angel of Reading Rainbow. 

The sole route where One Night Only slows itself down is when Owen and Allie’s orbits intersect, and the bumping score from Este Haim and Christopher Stracey creates electronic swoon. That’s where Friends With Benefits and Anyone But You director Will Gluck exhibits his mastery of the adult-oriented R-rated rom-com. While their dialogue exchanges still carry the crackling, uncensored zingers fitting the hot-and-bothered occasion, Owen and Allie are actually courting and trying to impress each other and not just notch another conquest when given abundant chances. Their intersecting storyline is the foil of patience and the quest for legitimate love against everyone else hitting it and quitting it. 

On his smile alone, Callum Turner can melt just about anyone he focuses his gaze on. Likewise, Monica Barbaro can turn heads and destroy hearts wearing a trash bag in mute silence, let alone gallivanting in the sparkly cocktail dress of her choice and unleashing those golden pipes she demonstrated playing Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown. Strike those two sharp flints of allure together in One Night Only, and the sparks are instantaneous, adding this genre—as every good actor should—to their audience approval ratings and resumes. Rooting for their predictable and satisfying union is worth the obstacle course, leading to arguably the sexiest movie of the year.

LESSON #4: CREDENCE IN THE CONCEPT— Through their arc, One Night Only, like a good satire or farce, dangles the notion that its ludicrous concept—played for laughs to thumb its nose at prudes, pariahs, and conservatives beyond the movie—might actually reveal some true credence. While a cockamamie mandate sure isn’t the route to make it happen, romantic relationships, future marriages, and positive couple choices could indeed be strengthened by delaying the brain-scrambling eros to focus on deeper and more genuine connections. Messy or not, there is stirring finesse and uproarious entertainment all over this quest.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1418)