Will Gluck knows his way around a rom-com. After Easy A and the massive success of Anyone But You, he returns with One Night Only, a charming, funny, and very predictable romantic comedy that worked for me largely because of its two fantastic leads: Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro.
The premise is easily the biggest thing you’re either going to buy into or completely reject. In this world, the government has implanted chips in basically everyone 18 and older that prevent them from having sex unless they’re married. There is, however, one day a year when premarital sex is allowed, with certain rules attached. So, naturally, the entire country turns that one night into an enormous dating frenzy.
And here’s my biggest problem with the movie: One Night Only is essentially a movie about sex that barely shows any sex.
I understand that sex isn’t necessarily supposed to be the point. The movie is really about connection, dating, relationships, and whether physical intimacy is actually the most important part of finding somebody. But it is still a bizarre choice to make a movie whose entire premise revolves around one night of sexual freedom and then spend almost the entire runtime avoiding the thing everyone is supposedly waiting for.
At one point, Owen even explains that the best part for him is what comes afterward, while Ali says the buildup is what matters to her. And that’s basically the movie in a nutshell: it’s all buildup. We’re waiting and waiting for these characters to finally reach that moment, and the movie never quite gives us the payoff you’d expect.
That aside, the movie works because Turner and Barbaro are fantastic together.
Turner plays Owen, who owns a pizza place, while Barbaro’s Ali is a singer who makes hilarious commercials for things like medications. The running gag involving her commercials is genuinely funny, and Barbaro gets to show off the vocal talent that made her such a standout in A Complete Unknown. I could watch Monica Barbaro in just about anything at this point. She’s terrific here.
And Turner finally gets one of those roles where you can really see him carrying a movie. He’s not just part of the ensemble or the guy somewhere in the background — he’s the leading man, he’s on the poster, and he and Barbaro have the kind of chemistry that makes a familiar story work.
You know exactly where this movie is going from the beginning. That’s not necessarily a criticism. That’s basically the rom-com contract. What matters is whether you enjoy the ride, and for the most part, I did.
There are some genuinely funny moments throughout, too. Matteo Ray, who plays Troy, got some of my biggest laughs, and the supporting cast is loaded with fun appearances, including Julia Fox, LeVar Burton, Molly Ringwald, and even a little Top Gun: Maverick reunion.
The movie does eventually run a little too long, though. I’d say there’s probably 20 minutes that could have been cut. We get one more obstacle between the two leads than we really need — another predictable hurdle that threatens to keep our soon-to-be couple apart even though we all know exactly where this is headed. If Gluck had trimmed that section and found a slightly cleaner way to wrap things up, I think the movie would have landed even better.
There are also some interesting ideas underneath the goofy premise. The government controlling people’s private lives, the surveillance, the mandates, the question of how much control we’re willing to give institutions over our personal choices — there’s more going on here than just the joke. You can draw your own parallels to all sorts of things happening in society, although the movie wisely never lets those ideas completely overwhelm the rom-com at its center.
And honestly, some of that stuff hits a little closer to home than you might expect from a movie this silly. The movie’s ideas about authoritarianism, government control, and especially the power to dictate what people can do with their own bodies can feel uncomfortably familiar when you look at debates over reproductive rights and laws regulating people’s personal choices. I don’t necessarily think One Night Only is making a straightforward partisan argument, but it does present a pretty unsettling idea of where that kind of government control could lead. It’s a surprisingly serious undercurrent for a movie that also has a ton of dick jokes.
Ultimately, One Night Only is charming enough that I can forgive a lot of its familiar beats. It’s got a fresh-enough premise, some good laughs, and, most importantly, two terrific leads who have fantastic chemistry.
Is it the most original rom-com you’ve ever seen? Absolutely not. Does it take a movie about a society obsessed with one particular night and make the strangest possible choice by keeping that element mostly off-screen? Definitely.
But it’s August. It’s a Sunday night. You’ve got two extremely charismatic stars, some good jokes, and a silly premise. Sometimes that’s enough.
One Night Only = 63/100
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