By John Corrado
One Night Only is the latest romantic comedy directed by Will Gluck (Friends With Benefits, Easy A), following up his surprise 2023 hit Anyone But You. That film, which was built around the chemistry between stars Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, fully embraced the conventions of a traditional rom-com to charming effect.
Gluck’s latest, on the other hand, is built around the high-concept premise of a future America where sex between unmarried people has been made illegal, save for one night a year when the mandate is lifted. This leads to an annual frenzy of everybody trying to hook up with each other on this one night.
It’s like the movie The Purge, where all crime is made legal for one night a year, but with sex instead (you can almost hear “sex purge movie” being said in a pitch meeting). The trouble is that the film doesn’t really do as much with this premise as it could have, and ultimately ends up having pretty mixed messaging instead.
The film is set in New York City on this night, with our romantic leads Owen (Callum Turner) and Allie (Monica Barbaro) having their “meet cute” moment literally running into each other on the sidewalk. He is a pizza maker who has been freshly dumped by his girlfriend (Maya Hawke), who wants to take the opportunity on this night to sleep with someone else. She is a singer who has been abandoned by her best friend (King Princess), who was supposed to spend the night cruising with her, but finds her own match almost immediately.
This leaves Owen and Allie both running around the city trying to find someone to sleep with before the sun comes up, and encountering a number of colourful characters, but continuously running into each other instead. Maybe they are actually meant to be with each other?
For a lot of One Night Only‘s runtime, it plays as a disposable but cute rom-com, following two people who clearly have a connection with each other and just don’t see it yet. Turner and Barbaro are both appealing and attractive leads, and it can be fun to watch the sparks fly between them. Barbaro, who received an Oscar nomination for her wonderful portrayal of Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, even gets to do some singing here, with a running joke around the parody jingles that she sings for TV commercials.
But the film doesn’t really know what to do with its premise after a certain point, beyond just giving a ticking clock element to these characters running around all night. The film wants to have its cake (or something else…) and eat it too, trying to play both sides in how it approaches the dystopian concept of a world where big government has outlawed sex outside of marriage. It even goes as far to suggest that the mandate is kinda, maybe a good thing (“maybe the fascists were right about this one,” a side character says at one point).
There is a better handling of this concept that goes deeper into exploring the societal impacts of it. And a better version of a Turner-Barbaro rom-com that doesn’t disappointingly fall short in terms of really grappling with its more interesting and challenging ideas. The leads do keep it watchable, but One Night Only gets frustrating if you think about it for too long.
Film Rating: ★★ (out of 4)
Bonus Features (4K Ultra HD):
The 4K disc includes four bonus featurettes. A regular Blu-ray is also included in the package, which ships with a standard matte slipcover.
• Feeling Sparks (4 minutes, 42 seconds): Turner and Barbaro talk about working together and the connection between their characters, while Gluck weighs in on the chemistry between them.
• Pizza 101 with Callum Turner (2 minutes, 7 seconds): Looks at how Turner learned how to authentically make pizza for the film.
• The Plus Ones – One Night Only (5 minutes, 44 seconds): Takes us through the variety of recognizable face who appear in bit parts throughout the film, from Hawke and King Princess to a variety of other cameos.
• No Glucks Given (5 minutes, 50 seconds): Looks at the challenges and benefits of shooting on location in New York City, and Gluck’s approach of filming on the fly like an indie movie.