Movie review: Tame 'One Night Only' subdues Callum Turner, Monica Barbaro
by Fred Topel · UPILOS ANGELES, Aug. 5 (UPI) -- Hollywood would be hard pressed to cast two more attractive people than Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro in a romantic-comedy. One Night Only, in theaters Friday, squanders their chemistry in a very safe, especially chaste sex comedy.
In the film, the United States outlawed premarital sex. Aug. 7 is the one night of the year the mandate is lifted and unmarried couples are allowed to sleep together.
Owen (Turner) was going to propose to his girlfriend (Maya Hawke) before she announced plans to spend her one night with someone else. Allie (Barbaro) is already single.
Because One Night Only is a mainstream Hollywood movie, the script by Travis Braun follows two characters who actually hope sex night leads to romance. A sex positive sex comedy would follow two lascivious degenerates who each deserve to score in this dystopian world.
Allie and Owen meet early in the night. The film has to construct a food poisoning incident to render Owen unattractive. Indeed, subsequent injuries also get in the way of the most attractive man in the city trying to score.
Allie's roadblocks are more contrived but make thematic sense. Some guys in a bar try wacky routines to win her, and others prove too good to be true.
The time spent before the 12-hour grace period begins could be forgiven as banal character development, though it is aggressively banal. Allie is an aspiring singer with absurdly artistic ambitions for her commercial jingles. Owen owns a pizza place.
These are placeholder character traits which would be fine if the movie focused on the sex romp. Alas, it keeps returning to Allie's music because it wants to solve her music problem when sex is enough for the plot.
Hollywood is terrified of women who enjoy sex simply because it's natural. Owen is also unrealistically hesitant to make sure nobody in the audience finds him threatening.
Turner is good at playing sheepish despite having that body, but he shouldn't have to. And we should be allowed to enjoy watching these gorgeous people get together.
Every time their night gets going, though, the romp pauses for some other distracting nonsense. On the way to a sex party, Allie tells Owen about her favorite children's book.
Condoms selling out on sex night makes sense, although businesses might plan supply around the one night a year the product can legally be used. A search for condoms was funnier in 1997's clever Booty Call.
Criminals take advantage of people's desperation so Allie debates the mandate with cops. This is really overstepping. The mandate is a good comedy premise. This isn't Robocop and Robocop was never even heavy-handed about its politics. This isn't even Logan's Run.
Braun and director Will Gluck actually do some solid world-building to establish post-mandate New York. Signage around the city both pro and anti-mandate is visible. Other businesses take advantage of the population being preoccupied.
A politician on TV confirms statistics that the mandate did reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. So a tad more thought went into it than "what if conservatives banned sex?"
And yet the Hollywood version of this erases whole swathes of people from participation. Every couple seen fondling each other in the background is thin.
The erasure of different sizes isn't just weight discrimination. It ignores how the mandate would probably equalize body types or even promote tolerance.
Not only would every shape of person partake in sex night, but were the entire population deprived of sex for 364 days, people with superficial preferences might learn to celebrate more diversity. And people who already celebrated it would have plenty of opportunities.
Maybe this is overthinking it, but the very premise of One NIght Only asks the audience to consider what if?
This week, One Night Only enters a marketplace bereft of rom-coms so it will benefit like the mandate's exemption. Since it is the only date movie in theaters right now, couples will probably go see it out of desperation.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.
Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner attend 'One Night Only' premiere
Stars Monica Barbaro (R) and Callum Turner arrive on the red carpet at the premiere of romantic comedy "One Night Only" in New York City on August 3, 2026. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo