‘One Night Only’ Review: A Funny And Sexy Rom-Com With Strong Build Up, Chaste Climax, And A Limp Finish

When you find yourself in a Will Gluck romantic comedy like One Night Only, you can expect the filmmaker to push the boundaries of a genre that has been making a comeback of late. Gluck’s Easy A pushed the boundaries of sex, reputation, and female sexuality, whereas his follow-up, Anyone But You, was tamer but embraced sexual attraction as a foundation rather than a subject that merely acts as a colorful backdrop.

With One Night Only, Gluck once again brings an interesting premise that is both sexy and funny, while adding clever touches throughout. Rather than feeling like another romantic-comedy premise recycled by artificial intelligence, like The Purge, and finding a comedic angle by taking a concept lifted from The Purge and finding a wickedly comedic and sexually charged angle that defies genre conventions.

One Night Only‘s first 95 minutes are sexy and funny, with a script from scribe Travis Braun that delivers strong build-up but, in its final moments, chooses to abstain, resulting in a chaste climax and limp finish.

The story follows a local pizza shop owner, Owen (Masters of the Air’s Callum Turner), a man with a zest for love and fresh basil as a topping for a piping-hot pizza pie. Owen is excited because he has a date with his girlfriend, Malika (Stranger Things‘ Maya Hawke), at a high-end sushi restaurant, where he plans to pop the question. The problem is that Malika has an even bigger surprise for Owen: she wants to sleep with another man, just for tonight.

Why? Well, a mandate was passed three years earlier allowing single, heterosexual adults to have sex for only one night each year. This makes for fertile comedic ground, where shirts are ripped, buttons fly, and, as you can imagine, zippers are pulled down so fast, I hate to think what type of Tedd Stroehmann-like injury may await. Malika wants to explore her sexuality and encourages Owen to do the same.

Heartbroken, he wanders the streets of New York, where he runs into Allie (Top Gun: Maverick’s Monica Barbaro), all gussied up and ready to find that one true love, hoping sex will lead to something meaningful. Both are romantics, head in the clouds about relationships, where everyone else in the big apples has their heads buried somewhere else. The result is a heightened, raunchy rom-com that breaks all the rules, until it doesn’t.

Gluck’s film has plenty of clever and amusing touches, including Barbaro’s character singing jingles for embarrassing hygiene products that pop up everywhere. Then there are picturesque cameos, where Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell appear in dating apps, and Turner asks a bartender if this guy is better looking than him. Gluck has these sincere characters racing through streets of debauchery, which has plenty of libidinous energy.

Part of the fun comes from the classic structure, watching the main characters find new ways to have their searches for sexual bliss foiled. Though, every time Turner walks down the street, an extra turns around to look at him. Barbaro, meanwhile, wears a dress that would make any man tell his friends to hold his beer, channel his inner “Real Man of Genius,” do his best Henry Cavill impression, and simply say, “Hi,” because it has always worked for him. Not to mention, these two attractive singles keep running full speed into each other.

The dialogue feels spontaneous, the embarrassments keep escalating, and the supporting characters are hilarious, including a dweeb trying to pick up women with magic tricks that had a direct line to my funny bone. Yet, for all that build-up and all its themes of sexual liberation, the ending has the backbone of a paramecium, feeling less like a fresh rom-com and more like a conservative abstinence PSA. This knocks down One Night Only from an instant classic to just another above-average notch on the genre bedpost.

You can watch One Night Only exclusively in theaters starting August 7th!