‘One Night Only’ Review: Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner in Rom-Com

In The Purge and its endless franchise spawn, an annual felony free-for-all allows for a single night of unlawful acts, including murder, in a United States of Grim that’s otherwise crime-free the rest of the year. Similarly, in the contemporary New York City world of One Night Only, tight-sphinctered conservatives have outlawed sex for anyone unmarried, lifting the ban for just a single 12-hour window per year, protection required. You might think CVS would plan ahead and stack the shelves with condoms during the countdown period. But removing that prophylactic shortage would rob Travis Braun’s silly script of one of many hindrances in the way of two reluctant lovebirds connecting.

Luckily for director Will Gluck, who is tasked with turning this flimsy concept into fizzy fun, he has two charming leads in Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner. Their easygoing chemistry makes us root for them to get over the many contrived hurdles that will take them from meet-cute through friction, blossoming friendship and horny flirtation until they inevitably arrive at true romance. 

That’s already more than can be said for Gluck’s last feature, Anyone But You, an excruciatingly unfunny rom-com whose adversarial leads, played by Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell, were so self-enamored it was hard to imagine anyone caring if they got together. But that unwatchable dreck somehow made $220 million worldwide, so what do I know?

The pairing of Turner, showing an appealing aw-shucks goofy side to offset his studly swagger, and the incandescent Barbaro, finally landing a role that builds on her enormous promise in A Complete Unknown, makes One Night Only Gluck’s best film since the 2010 Emma Stone teen comedy, Easy A. Does it lift the stench of his heinous 2014 Annie remake? Nothing ever could. But it’s proof positive that smart casting can make even the most unlikely scenario palatable.

Or is it so unlikely? Given the family-values brigade’s pearl-clutching about recreational sex and the reported sex recession among Gen Z and Millennial demographics, maybe it isn’t so hard to imagine a state-enforced veto on sex outside marriage. Certainly, a TV news pundit talking up the decline in teen pregnancies and STDs and the evolution of the term “incel” into a badge of honor suggests a neo-puritan climate not outside the realm of possibility. Sounds like Mike Johnson’s idea of heaven. But aside from the occasional bit of “Fuck the mandate!” graffiti, Gluck and Braun decline to have any political fun with the nationwide chastity edict.

That means you might have questions. How is this enforced? Some hasty business involving wrist-implanted biosensors indicating marital status doesn’t quite explain how the government is policing what goes on behind closed doors. Are colleagues, friends, neighbors and family informing on transgressors, like Chinese civilians during the 35-year One Child policy? Is there a fine payable or strictly incarceration for offenders? What was the initial impetus for the draconian legislation being introduced? Is there a “Fight to Fornicate” protest movement?

I spent a lot of time mulling over these and other unanswered questions, but there will doubtless be plenty of moviegoers eager to accept One Night Only on its own rigorously featherweight terms as it breezes along to an endless succession of peppy needle drops. Its all-night odyssey is like After Hours with any hint of danger removed. 

High among the bright, shiny comedy’s pleasures is the too-rare treat of seeing NYC playing itself, instead of a stand-in location with a handful of second-unit exteriors. That said, it’s an oddly heterosexual vision of one of the world’s most vital LGBTQ hubs. I counted two bisexual women, three lesbians (one of them busy babysitting, not having sex) and two gay men smooching on a subway.

There’s a fleeting mention of queer folks circumventing restrictive laws for decades, which spares them the desperate 12-hour urgency feverishly gripping the rest of the city. But on a night when seemingly every New Yorker under 40 is out partying or humping in stairwells and diner booths, did all the gays just randomly decide to stay home? That seems unlikely but it’s indicative of the “carefree dystopian” vibe of Braun’s script, its ostensibly provocative premise barely concealing an aversion to anything subversive. But enough griping. 

Turner plays Owen, a pizzeria owner who has planned a romantic night with his girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke, wasted in a thankless role), starting at a high-end sushi joint where he has hidden an engagement ring in a special cocktail. But before he can spring it on her, Malika casually informs him she has decidedly to sleep with someone else — a hot new neighbor — and will need Owen to steer clear of their apartment for the night. She enourages him to seize the opportunity to explore, to step outside his pre-programmed box. He’s crushed.

Barbaro plays Allie, a talented singer whose stage fright confines her to recording advertising jingles reworked from Sara Bareilles and Vanessa Carlton hits to push psoriasis medication and vaginal hygiene products. Allie is all set for a night on the town with her pal Jacinta (King Princess), vowing to be selective and stop each other from hasty decisions as they size up the guys on offer and zero in on winning candidates. But Jacinta finds true lust in the line to the bathroom and her swift exit strands Allie, forced to face the most potentially depressing night of the year solo.

Refusing to let her stay home and mope, Allie’s queer roommate Arya (Quintessa Swindell) kits her out in sizzling glam assembled out of items left behind by assorted ex-girlfriends and sends her out into the night to score. Likewise, Owen’s doting mother Linda (Molly Ringwald) nixes him hanging out at her place because she’s preparing to entertain her boyfriend Rick (LeVar Burton) with some hot sex that we later learn involves bubble wrap. Poor Molly, don’t ask.

Thrust onto the street, Allie and Owen collide and sparks instantly fly until he kills the buzz by throwing up the two full omakase dinners he was forced to consume after Malika bolted. That triggers a series of events that set Allie and Owen on parallel but frequently overlapping courses marked by side quests, abortive hookups, a brush with a too-good-to-be-true parole violator (Andrew Burnap) and another with a seductive thief (Sydney Cole Alexander), making bank on a night when lots of sex-starved guys get conned.

Among their encounters is a sexually forward bartender (Julia Fox), a narcissistic anti-mandate rock star (Charlie Gillespie) and a libidinous British LadyBoss who appears to be channeling Tilda Swinton (Ella Loudon). There’s also a parade of cameos, some of them billed, like Michelle Hurd and Mike Birbiglia as cops or Flava Flav officiating the 7 p.m. kickoff countdown, and some unbilled, including a pair of instantly recognizable faces shooting a cop drama for Tubi.

I wish I could say some of these episodes were uproariously funny, but at best they’re mildly amusing with a handful of exceptions. (I laughed at repeated references to the straight-dude fashion choice, Buck Mason.) Two of the biggest responses from the preview audience I saw it with were self-referential visual in-jokes involving Gluck’s Anyone But You leads.

In press materials, the director notes his desire to comment on the difficulty of finding love in a dating scene where an assortment of partners is just a phone swipe away. But the paradoxical isolation of our hyper-connected age is a point that’s been made more cogently in about 800 million films in recent years.

The substitution of Washington Heights’ Little Red Lighthouse for the traditional rom-com destination of the Empire State Building is a cute touch. But mostly it’s the effortless appeal of Barbaro and Turner as hopeless romantics on a night dedicated to instant carnal gratification that keeps the movie motoring along, even when Braun’s screenplay is at its most effortful. 

One Night Only often brought out my inner curmudgeon, but there’s no doubt an audience hungry to see pretty people in exactly this kind of froth. At the very least, it might serve as a date-night aphrodisiac for the young and the celibate, bless them.