One Night Only Review: A Wild, Weird, Totally Unexpected Rom Com Pleasure

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I'll be completely honest: I went into my screening of "One Night Only" with a bad attitude. I brought a friend as my plus one, and while inviting her, I simply texted, "Do you want to go laugh at the sex 'Purge' movie?" If you've heard literally anything about rom-com king Will Gluck's latest effort — where "A Complete Unknown" star Monica Barbaro and Mr. Dua Lipa Callum Turner run around New York City because premarital sex is only legal for one night a year — you probably understand my apprehension here. 

I was wrong. I'm big enough to admit it (when it happens). "One Night Only" is an absolute delight.

Frankly? I should have known! There are a few directors that I think of as "turd polishers" working today (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who somehow made not one but two extremely good "21 Jump Street" "reboots," fall into that category). I never really considered Gluck to be one of them, but with "One Night Only," this guy has handily proven that he can make a sharp, sweet, genuinely funny romantic comedy even with a concept as bizarre and unsettling as "the government tells people precisely when they're allowed to get freaky with each other." Barbaro and Turner play Allie and Owen, respectively, two New Yorkers who find themselves single on the big night and, avoiding a simmering attraction to each other, decide to team up to find partners together.

Add in a ton of cheeky cameos, some incredible jokes about pharmaceutical marketing in the soundtrack, and world-building that was so thorough that I cannot wait to rewatch this movie as a digital release and pause it to find every little Easter egg, and you've got a movie that isn't just surprisingly good. It's legitimately good.

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When Callum Turner — a guy I genuinely only know as pop star Dua Lipa's husband — first ambled on screen in "One Night Only" as New York City pizza shop owner Owen, I had my doubts. In early moments with his initial girlfriend (played briefly by Maya Hawke), Turner is a little wooden. Thankfully, before long, he crosses paths with Monica Barbaro's Allie, a singer who dreams of performing in front of crowds but, thanks to crippling stage fright, is stuck performing embarrassing pop covers for pharmaceutical ads. (A cover of the Sara Bareilles song "Brave" about plaque psoriasis comes up more than once, and not only are the jokes and lyrics legitimately funny, but it's a great way to remind audiences that Barbaro can sing.) When the movie puts them together, Turner and Barbaro light up the screen.

Both of them find themselves solo on the one night a year that unmarried people are allowed to take a trip to pound town, and both of them are more than a little desperate. We learn that Allie got "ghosted" by a guy last year, and early into the big night, her friend Jacinta (a cleverly deployed King Princess) immediately absconds with Tejan (Okieriete Onaodowan), who turns out to be an actual prince. Owen, who arranges for an elaborate omakase dinner for his girlfriend and plans to propose only to be told that she wants to sleep with one of their neighbors instead of him, is determined to outdo her at any cost. So how do they meet? Well, first Owen literally bumps into Allie and barfs that omakase all over her; then, later, they find themselves fighting over one lone condom in hopes of using it with other people.

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Nothing about "One Night Only" should work, but I should know, by now, to trust Will Gluck. The first movie from Gluck I ever saw is "Easy A," which became a long-standing favorite and, honestly, also has a really crazy premise that sees Emma Stone's quirky high schooler Olive Penderghast pretending to sleep with her classmates for Home Depot gift cards and lobster dinners. His follow-up, "Friends with Benefits" — no, not the one with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher, this is the one with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake — is straightforward and largely dumb but has its moments, and Gluck's remake of "Annie" notwithstanding, his track record is more solid than not. If you think you're not familiar with his work, you definitely are: "Anyone But You," Gluck's 2023 rom-com led by Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney, made a small fortune at the box office and cemented those two as romantic comedy leads despite probably being one of his weakest narratives to date.

I don't think anyone else could have made "One Night Only" and made it not only watchable, but actually fun. Gluck's sharp cuts, careful direction of his actors, and legitimately great eye — there were a handful of editing gags and gorgeous shot compositions in this movie that made me laugh and made me gasp in equal measure — make "One Night Only" a legitimately good time. Again, nobody is as surprised by this as me. 

As Allie and Owen spend twelve hours on a madcap dash through New York to get some, I was truly delighted by some of the weird twists and turns, from a potential partner being a criminal to a short dive into a sewer. Then there's the supporting cast.

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I already mentioned Maya Hawke and King Princess — the former is best known for "Stranger Things" and being the child of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke, and the latter is a popular singer-songwriter who also dabbles in acting — but I still can't believe how much stunt casting and how many cameos Will Gluck packed into this relatively tight movie. (It runs for about an hour and 42 minutes, which is, truly, the perfect length for a romantic comedy.) Early in the film, we meet Owen's mother, played by former Brat Packer and teen movie icon Molly Ringwald; he also almost hooks up with a gorgeous bartender at the (real) White Horse Tavern who's played by Julia Fox. Fox, a model, actress, and author who made her debut in "Uncut Gems," pretty famously practices celibacy in her real life; casting her as someone on the hunt for a potential partner during The One Legal Sex Night is extremely funny.

The list goes on and on. LeVar Burton plays Ringwald's lover, who kicks Owen out of the house and sends him on his sexual odyssey. Este Haim and Ziwe pop up as two bouncers at an exclusive party, "Severance" standout Sydney Nicole Alexander appears as a woman that Owen meets on a dating app, Quintessa Swindell plays Allie's supportive roommate, Mike Birbiglia plays an exasperated cop, "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" OG Michelle Hurd is perfectly deployed as an exhausted detective, and Jay Ellis, Nicholas Braun, and Ben Marshall all show up as horrifying potential suitors vying for Allie's, uh, hand. I can't fully explain how and why all of this casting makes the movie work so well, but it just does.

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I think the aspect of "One Night Only" that will drive repeat viewings — not just for me, but for anyone who enjoys this silly, completely fun movie — is the world-building. Yes, the "sex 'Purge' movie" has world-building worthy of a sci-fi epic, and for the millionth time, I'm just as shocked as you are. Even though Will Gluck's version of New York is grounded in our reality in some aspects — I was genuinely happy to see the city depicted as both beautiful and littered with loose trash bags, and it's one of the only times I've seen a movie get the New York City subway precisely right — it's also a dystopian nightmare where a repressive, "Handmaid's Tale" lite version of Congress has decided to cut down on unwanted pregnancies and STIs by making premarital sex legal for just one night a year and using biometric trackers on citizens to enforce the rule. This is incredibly dark and, frankly, I don't want any members of our actual Congress to watch this and get any ideas. 

Still, Gluck makes this deeply unsettling concept funny and strangely real. The world of "One Night Only" looks like ours, but isn't; at various points you can see ads for "AI massages" and "Omicron Airlines flights to Cuba," both of which made me laugh really hard. In almost every business, there's a sign with the word "sex" in all caps and a line through it, and the diagrams of what's "allowed" between unmarried citizens are as filthy as they are funny. Gluck's commitment to the bit here, from graffiti to clever signage to a looming countdown clock, makes the movie sing.

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Speaking of singing, though, there are some missteps in "One Night Only" — and most of them come down to the script. Gluck's directorial flourishes and aforementioned world building are great, and he also gets great leading turns out of Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, but Travis Braun's script is a little boilerplate and adds in some plotlines that land with a thud. The most egregious example is Allie's career as a singer. Giving her stage fright — which ironically allows her to meet one of her artistic heroes in the film's second act — is expected and boring; while her jingle career provides some of the movie's biggest laughs, why can't she simply be someone desperate to perform her own material? This subplot didn't add much and could have been altered slightly or changed completely, and it's not that big of a deal, but the scenes centered around Allie's dream of singing in public hit flat notes. (Barbaro did not, though. Again, she's got pipes.) Some lines are clunkers and some moments are rote, but this is a rom-com, after all — we've got a formula to follow.

Despite a few stumbles, "One Night Only" reaches an actually sweet conclusion sold beautifully by Barbaro and Turner, and though I know I'm repeating myself, I need to be abundantly clear. "One Night Only" shouldn't work. I am shocked that I left the theater grinning ear to ear and, one could say, fully satisfied. "One Night Only" is a high-concept, patently absurd romantic comedy that defies the odds and makes you fall in love with it. You'll want more than one night with this one.

/Film Rating: 8 out of 10

"One Night Only" opens in theaters on August 7, 2026.