Movies

One Night Only, starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner and directed by Will Gluck
Trailer: Universal Pictures

One Night Only
Directed by Will Gluck
Rated R
Dated 7 August 2026
#OneNightOnlyMovie

As horrible as its premise sounds, One Night Only rather magically turns into one of the summer’s most pleasant surprises.

You Get What You Give

It’s such a ridiculous premise. Think The Purge meets rom-com. (On second thought, don’t think that.) Following the enactment of a nationwide chastity mandate three years ago, single people are allowed to fornicate during only one night every year. It’s a big event, of course. From 7:00 PM to 7:00 AM, single people can go all out, as long as they use protection and follow approved positions as denoted in stick-figure illustrations adorning public posters and police station walls. (Pro tip: For those ambitious enough, consider leveraging time zone changes while moving west.)

It’s absurd. It’s borderline insulting.

But there’s a big twist.

What if it turns out this absurdist comedy actually has a legitimate romantic streak to it?

What if it has some heart for its lead characters?

More shocking: What if this nonsense is also driven by a remarkably wholesome core?

This isn’t a modern sex comedy, something like Revenge of the Social Media Nerds. This is a “high concept” romantic comedy, more like How to Find a Meaningful Date in 12 Hours.

With all of that looniness swirling around the unquestionably beautiful Monica Barbaro and the passable Callum Turner, One Night Only turns into the ultimate mishmash of the crass and the refined. Certainly, this is virtually the definitive movie for “your mileage may vary.” It’s not for all tastes and, for that matter, it’s not entirely clear whose tastes this will satiate.

Break Loose Break Free!

Allie (Barbaro) is a jingle singer, a talented woman with a rather unfortunate career that’s stuck singing tortured versions of catchy songs from Sara Bareilles, Twisted Sister and other pop/rock stars. The beats sound familiar, but the words go far off the register. The lyrics are less about love and empowerment and more about hot topics like the heartbreak of plaque psoriasis and genital irritations.

Owen (Turner) owns and operates a Manhattan pizza shop. An older couple steps in to work the shop while Owen and his pizza engineers clock out for the event. At one point, Owen will go on a tirade about how women don’t like nice guys. Preach it, bro.

Allie is a daydreamer (she’s a “creative,” so of course she dreams big) who is perpetually single. She enjoys the build-up to romance and everlasting love. And yet here she is, searching for true love on what is now widely regarded as the least romantic night of the year. It doesn’t fall on Valentine’s Day, which certainly doubles the pain for some who must now wade through missing Cupid’s arrows and being stranded on the “One Night.”

It’s such a cruel, cruel world.

Owen has a girlfriend and he’s ready to propose marriage. For him, the best part of love is the “after” time, the cuddling, Unfortunately for Owen, it seems the “after” will be much later. Over dinner, his girlfriend drops the ultimate mega-ton bomb on him: she wants to have sex with somebody else during the “One Night” event.

Are Allie and Owen star-crossed lovers who meet cute and go on to live happily ever after following this night of Cupid’s arrows whistling all over the place in the name of poor choices?

Well, they meet sorta-cute on three different occasions during this night. One’s an accidental bump-in on the sidewalk while they’re not looking where they’re going. One’s at a convenience store ATM as they vie to retrieve $200 from their respective bank accounts to throw it all down for the last available condom in the entire city that never sleeps (never more so than on “One Night”).

And the third time is at a police station where their individual nights – each having gone horribly awry – cross once again. (And with those stick figure illustrations seemingly egging them on in the background.)

Brave

For the bulk of the movie, thoughts wander around those streets alongside Allie and Owen, hovering like ghosts from romantic movies past.

What’s going on here? Director William Gluck has an interesting roster of movies to his credit, including Easy A and Friends with Benefits. But there’s also the disastrous 2014 remake of Annie and a couple Peter Rabbit movies. And the screenwriter, Travis Braun? What the heck. He created the animated children’s shows Pupstruction and T.O.T.S.

Whoa.

Where are we?

Who are we?

Why would Monica Barbaro, a bright, supremely talented (she sings those jingles with wild abandon) Academy Award nominee (for her superb take on Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown) agree to such a preposterous, risqué movie as her follow-up after visiting Oscarville?

Well, oftentimes, horror movies (although, not necessarily The Purge specifically) are warnings to teens. Save yourself; don’t have sex! Of course, the “save yourself” is a double entendre of saving your life from the menace wearing a William Shatner mask while brandishing sharpened cutlery and the virginal application of the term.

So, maybe there’s more to this night.

Of course, there’s a cultural undertone to all this. While it’s not apparent in this movie, the news feeds are filling up with sad, sad stories of people taking on AI partners in the absence of (or instead of) human companionship. No doubt, such an apathetic, detached world invites the doom of a chastity mandate by popular vote.

And therein is a political bite. The mandate was “conceived” via the ballot box and the idea of allowing “one night only” for oats sowing was a political compromise. But the twist within the twist, as it were, is a surprising knock against Pres. Obama that – at least from one character’s point of view – pins the blame for all this insanity solely on him. So, is that a quip out of left field or out of right field?

Perhaps that makes it the perfect joke.

There’s also a joke about incels brandishing a badge of honor.

Elsewhere, as Allie searches for her one-nighter, a perv at a bar hits on her and explains he’s working on a drug that’ll block the biometric sensors everyone is required to have embedded in their left wrist. It doesn’t seem plausible, but the sensors show a red or green tattoo based on one’s mandate-compliant availability. It also doesn’t seem plausible that this jingle singer immediately connects the dots and asserts it’s the kind of drug that could be used to cure Parkinson’s. He says there’s no money in that, so he’s sticking with the mandate blocker.

Next joke… Please.

Babysitters can charge exorbitant “surge pricing” rates to look after creepy 12-year-olds. Then again, given the kid with whom Allie’s roommate has taken on babysitting duties, maybe $5,000 for the night is a bargain for the mom looking to be relieved of her dirty-minded son for a spell.

And in that sense, One Night Only works like the best comedies, such as Game Night; there’s a brisk pace and if one joke bombs, give it a second, there’s another joke in the queue.

Even so, there is one scene involving Molly Ringwald (as Owen’s mom) and LeVar Burton (her sorta partner). They’re wearing bubble wrap.

It’s a visual that stays with a fella.

Uninvited.

Unwanted.

Shakedown

One Night Only both begins and ends with Allie singing one of those jingles. It’s an over-the-top way to throw people into this chaotic world that is at first so off-putting.

But then other subtleties pop up. There’s chatter of a super-hot guy with an extravagant Spanish name. Then his avatar is shown. It’s Glen Powell.

Later, in another social platform, a person’s swiping left and right when – all of a sudden – Sydney Sweeney’s portrait appears.

They’re great jokes simply on the visuals of it, but it’s also an inside joke, with Powell and Sweeney having co-starred in director Gluck’s Anyone But You, a romantic comedy of love and hate that is itself both loved by many and hated by many. There’s also a sight gag involving Colleen Hoover’s novel Ugly Love.

Those sight gags are like a pressure release. Chillax and enjoy the madness.

Gluck finds new and innovative ways to obstruct views of the “juicy bits” as so many people surrounding Allie and Owen drop their inhibitions like all those proverbial cheap suits and prom dresses. There are so many clever quick edits, custom framing, strategically placed arms and hands and potted plants. In the end tally, the only actual nudity are the bare bottoms of two men (yeah, Callum’s is one of the pair).

All Out of Love

Of course, on the flip side, there’s still a whole lot of crass going on. At one point, Owen, desperate for a condom, investigates the use of a rubber glove, aided by some K-Y Jelly handed out by overly happy sidewalk marketers. Can a TikTok challenge be far behind?

It’s also humorous to watch girls continuously ogle Owen as he walks by. Oddly enough, that doesn’t happen to Allie. Another cultural jab, perhaps? Reverse sexism? Wokeness gone amuck? Maybe it’s simply a wholly unintentional fluke.

Then again, there are a lot of people running around in this movie who are supposedly hot, but they’re not. Certainly not to everyone’s taste or varying levels of desperation. They’re an acquired taste. Or it’s those “condom goggles” talking.

As for the condom situation, is seems so untoward to poke criticism at a movie with such a looney premise, but what the heck, America? What happened to advance planning? Not Planned Parenthood, just preparation for that rainy day – or “One Night.” This is one night a year when sexual decorum flies out the window (almost literally) and there’s a run on condoms. Anybody think of stocking up during the previous 364 days? Maybe single people aren’t allowed to buy condoms on those other nights. But here’s a workaround: get a married friend to buy some for you.

Sure, the logic quickly breaks down.

Of course it does. It’s rom-com logic. That’s what makes this a movie, not a documentary.

The bad, bad dates are entertaining and oddly relatable, even if at an elevated version of “typical” reality in the dating world. Sure, the condom heist from the convenience is more than a stretch. Sure, the lewd song performed by Ezra Strong (Charlie Gillespie) is a showcase of poor taste. But that’s the point, particularly given his comeuppance.

As the night moves along, there are the inevitable hits and misses. But, the new day dawns and the 12-hour sex spree peters out, Gluck pulls off a nifty trick. One of Allie’s jingles kicks in, followed by a… hmmm… What to call it? A climactic epilogue.

It’s those final scenes that drive home what just happened – at least for Allie and Owen – was remarkably wholesome despite – against all odds – all that crass activity. That strong romantic element was also there all along, but like nice guys and blind dates, it takes some time to appreciate what’s been there all along.

• Originally published at MovieHabit.com.

In Pursuit of the New Bohemia:  Truth • Beauty • Freedom • Love
"Serving the PRM and Its Territories Worldwide Since 3 July 2000"
Site Contents Copyright © MM - MMXXVI, Matthew Anderson, Unless Otherwise Noted
Privacy policy