One Night Only Review: Will Gluck's Latest Rom-Com Is a Bit of a Cringe Fest
Dubbed "the sex Purge movie" this one certainly struggles with the foreplay.
This post is free to enjoy but it's worth it to become part of my exclusive Gold Star Crew of Silver and Gold Film Mavens.
🌟Supporters like: Neeley Drown, Mary, Cynthia J. Vinney, Meredith Nudo, Christina Ortega, Lucie Goulet, Inara, B G, Janette Davis, and Daniel Montgomery💫
Paid subscribers are the backbone of The Film Maven who support independent journalism, as well as female- and disabled-created content. Paid Film Mavens get access to shout-outs, exclusive articles and series, Zoom mixers, and The Film Maven Discord server.
Gold Film Mavens can now schedule free consultations with me on Zoom! Looking to get into journalism? Need to learn how to pitch? Want to write a book but don't know the process? Thinking of starting a newsletter? Schedule a private 1:1 session with me every month, free.
Consider becoming a paid subscriber and joining the community that invests in independent journalism free of AI and influencer opinions!
One Night Only is one of the weirdest movies you'll see all year. Unintentionally weird that is as no doubt somewhere along the line someone saw its premise as simply the epitome of "high concept." "A rom-com set in a world where pre-marital sex is banned!" The problem is that, for the target demographic of the movie (predominately femme folks), that idea comes rife with problems the world being built can't possibly deal with. If it can fathom that at all. In a landscape where people are being urged to have children, Roe v. Wade is overturned and feminine contraceptive is being questioned at every turn....watching a movie about two people trying to buy a condom is probably funny.
Stars Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, this movie being a proving ground on whether they have any heft in the cinematic landscape, are blameless in this instance. As is most of the cast, all of whom would probably have rocked it in a more standard romantic comedy. But One Night Only becomes a cringe-fest the longer it goes on, sacrificing actual romance for a sex comedy that feels like it'll give the wrong people ideas in the dystopian time we're actually living in.
The government has outlawed pre-marital sex, outside of one "exemption night" a year where everyone can go out and find someone to sleep with and not be brought up on criminal charges. Enter into this night of debauchery Allie (Barbaro) and Owen (Turner). The two continuously cross paths before eventually banding together on a sex quest that could find the pair, no surprise, falling in love with each other.
One Night Only feels similar to Gluck's previous movie about two people who try to navigate the waters of casual sex: 2011's Friends With Benefits, a movie that is low on the Gluck cinematic rankings. At the time that film was released, the same year as the other "casual sex" movie No Strings Attached (Hollywood really was thrown by young people just having sex for the hell of it), Gluck seemed to struggle with the idea that people would want to have sex for fun. He took it down the Rob Reiner path that, really, two people of the opposite gender can't be friends (or just have random sex) without falling in love.
The same can be said for this movie, wherein the audience is never left wondering whether these two will fall in love. It's a rom-com and they're on the poster, after all. But more so whether the "sex" they're actually allowed to have on this night will ever happen.
But the longer that one night goes on the premise just becomes increasingly inept and shoddy. That's because the world that's created feels incredibly romanticized and, for lack of a better word, dumb as hell. Screenwriter Travis Braun spent the last decade or so in children's television writing, and makes his feature debut with this script. As the movie lays out, a government mandate has outlawed sex outside of marriage. One random news segment sees a grinning white politician talk about how proud they are to have saved the home and family and "it's even easier to be an incel." But for this unsettling zinger the movie never lays out any consequences to this mandate short of everyone being utterly horny. Be nice to see what the divorce and sexual assault rates would be.
The movie doesn't mention this, but while protection is "required" to have sex, that's relegated strictly to condoms. So I guess female contraceptive is finally outlawed in this world. And outside of two stray same-sex couples kissing NYC is incredibly hetero here.
In this world, as the script sees it, women go out in little but lingerie and tube dresses, desperate to score a man while the men have to do little more than be weirdos and the women flock to them. One scene sees Allie indulge all manner of discussions with men – who do things like magic – in the vain hope of making, as she claims, "a genuine connection." Both her and Owen make stray connections but they end in failure, more embarrassingly for Alli who ends up at the police station and has to hear a very off-putting song sung about "fucking" her to her face. (Also, she asks her friend to check in with her throughout the night but Allie's never afraid to go to a strange man's house alone.)
Turner and Barbaro understand the assignment and do about as good as they'd ever be with these characters. Owen has just heard his girlfriend (a wasted Maya Hawke) admit she wants to sleep with someone else, making him desperate to one-up her. Turner is charming, much like he was in last year's Eternity, and tries hard to nail the comedic part but he can come off a smidge wooden. The movie also seems simultaneously confused and irritated he's the lead, the script filled with constant reminders from women about how "hot" he is while making fun of his appearance.
Barbaro lacks the bubbliness of Gluck's Easy A leading lady Emma Stone, but she's solid. As a character Allie is lacking in much depth (though that's a problem with most of the women in this movie). She hasn't had sex in a year, and seemingly no real long-term relationships. She's a singer of embarrassing Pharma commercial covers who maybe wants to do more but suffers from Violet Sanford-level stage fright that disappears with one musical performance. Really, Barbaro seems to be here to make this movie a musical, with various musical performances interspersed throughout.
Kristen Lopez
The supporting cast not only anchors One Night Only, but ends up creating the best scenes in the movie. Molly Ringwald and LeVar Burton are hilarious as Owen's mother and the man she's going to have sex with, respectively. Covered in bubble wrap and delivering sex advice, Burton is especially deft at the comedy here.
By the time the inevitable happens, or doesn't, the pacing has felt stodgy as hell. Turner and Barbaro don't have enough heat to make the buildup to their eventual realizations land, and the movie's premise just leaves the audience cringing at what these two's future could even look like. Also, it's laughable to think there's absolutely no way people aren't having sex outside of this mandate....unless everyone has just stopped being creative.
One Night Only is a truly bizarre piece of work. The actors are good but the premise is filtered through a lens that comes off as skeezy and, unfortunately, just way too prescient to be enjoyable. But, hey, at least someone showed us what The Purge would look like if it involved sex.
Grade: D
One Night Only is in theaters Friday.
You just read this for free! Here's what you missed by not becoming a Gold Star paid subscriber starting at just $4 a month or $30 a year:
- Access to all my paid content and exclusive series like:
Kristen Lopez
Kristen Lopez
- Shout outs on my newsletter when you join and whenever you have something you're launching.
- Included on my Gold Star Crew list
- Bi-Monthly Zoom Mixers where we can talk entertainment, get advice on journalism, and generally discuss the world.
- Access to our Discord server where we can chat about movies and entertainment. It's also where I host my yearly Golden Globes and Oscar watches.
- Participation in my new Film Maven Secret Santa Gift Exchange (launching November 2026), book clubs, and film discussion groups (launching later this year)
🚨Upcoming Book Tour Appearances🚨
- August 8: I'll be at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum in Los Angeles! This is technically a long overdue talk and signing for last year's Popcorn Disabilities, my book on disability in the movies, but copies of But Have You Read: Romance will be on hand at the bookstore and I will sign those as well! You can find out more and buy tickets at this link.
- August 15: I'll be appearing at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Learn more here!
- (JUST ANNOUNCED) August 21: Come out to the Los Feliz 3 where I'll be participating in this year's Friend of the Fest introducing the 1946 film Gilda.
- August 23: If you're in the Temecula area drop by the Temecku Cinemas where I'll be doing a book signing and Q&A (moderated by my fabulous friend, and fellow author, Emily Edwards) before a private screening of The Notebook in partnership with In Bloom Bookery. Buy tickets here.
