One Night Only Review: An Unhinged Premise Results in Unfunny Comedy

Posted in: Kaitlyn Booth, Movies, Review, Universal | Tagged: one night only

One Night Only Review: An Unhinged Premise Results in Unfunny Comedy

It's one thing to be a mediocre, mostly unfunny, and unsexy R-rated romantic comedy; it's another thing for One Night Only to go the extra mile to add all of this set dressing and do nothing with it.

Published Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:04:10 -0500
by Kaitlyn Booth
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Article Summary

• One Night Only's buckwild premise results in a romantic comedy that rarely feels funny, sexy, or insightful.
• The film sets up a world with one legal night for sex, but barely explores the social or political fallout.
• Questions about the law, consent, birth control, and enforcement pile up, leaving the worldbuilding thin and distracting.
• Monica Barbaro gets a few standout moments, but One Night Only never turns its concept into sharp comedy.

One Night Only fails to do anything with its buckwild premise, which is even more frustrating than just being a mostly unfunny, unsexy romantic comedy.

Director: Will Gluck
Summary: Two New Yorkers search for love on the one night of the year when sex is legal.

As a critic, most of the time, relating to a film's premise or world is not essential. However, when a genre like the romantic comedy goes out of its way to add new set dressing to stand out from the rest, even when fans of that genre aren't expecting or need it, it can become a factor. That being said, the entire premise of One Night Only requires you to suspend a lot of belief to get on board.

The bulk of this suspension of disbelief revolves around accepting that going a year without sex would render people incoherent wild animals willing to do anything and anything to stick it in, while presuming this scenario wouldn't result in a range of behaviors one might find in a horror film rather than an ostensible romantic comedy. The behaviors shown trend more along the lines of one extended joke where someone is willing to pay $200 for a condom.

Those are the kind of jokes the comedy side of One Night Only does with the idea of a world where premarital sex is banned except for one night a year, the lowest hanging fruit and nothing else, on social media, several people referred to this as "the sex Purge," but that is being far too kind to this film. The first film in The Purge franchise didn't do much with its premise, but it at least paid some level of lip service to the fallout from the idea that crime is legal for one day a year.

No one does that in One Night Only. Why was this ban passed? We see a weirdly puritanical news story about returning the sanctity of sex to marriage, but that is literally the only cited reason. For a film that is entirely about sex, it has a very low opinion about why people choose to have sex outside of marriage. There is one throwaway line about teen pregnancy being extremely low, but that's it. There is no mention of what the population and birth rates are like now. Does the passing of this law mean that IFV and other forms of having children have gone up because there is no other way to have kids outside of marriage? Condom use being mandatory is a big plot point for the film, but that is just one way to have protection in sex, and it isn't 100% in preventing pregnancy. Is there an explosion of births nine months after the day every year? Why is condom use the only cited form of birth control? Has the government banned the use of oral birth control, IUDs, and other alternative forms of birth control?

What about the fact that the entire concept of being people this stupid and horny is insanely dangerous for women specifically? Why did the film decide to throw in the idea of date rape as a throwaway joke when being roofied is likely something that happens a lot in this universe? The technology, briefly explained to show how people break this law, is baffling, and it's another aspect of this world that the movie wants you to accept. You have this mark on you, and it tracks body chemistry, and that's how they figure out whether or not you're horny enough and in proximity enough to break the law. Here's your citation. See you in horny court.

There are clearly people who are against this law, and we do see some of that "show don't tell" stuff in the background, as graffiti and the mention of a benefit concert on the anti-side of the argument, but that's about it. They mention that shooting movies and television shows is preferable because people are so distracted by sex that paparazzi are less likely to bother everyone. The fact that not using protection in this world is seen as a form of social rebellion is one of the most baffling moments seen on the big screen this year.

And why are we bringing all of this up? Because One Night Only does absolutely nothing with the larger social and political implications of the world it has created. Largely, the only commentary on love, sex, and relationships it uses this concept to make is 'well, maybe sex isn't the be-all-end-all of relationships, and maybe you should slow down and get to know someone before you stick it in.' Which isn't a bad thing, but it's a very after-school-special way of approaching sex. The world of One Night Only is weirdly puritanical about sex, and the film isn't doing anything to combat that.

It's one thing to be a mediocre, mostly unfunny, and unsexy R-rated romantic comedy; it's another thing to go the extra mile to add all of this set dressing and do nothing with it. That is the ultimate sin that One Night Only really commits. If you strip away the entire world it has created and the fact that no one involved with this film decided to do anything remotely interesting with this concept, there are a few decent jokes that will probably make fans of the genre happy. This is a genre where failing to remake the wheel is acceptable and even expected.

However, there are a few good jokes (the various jingles that Monica Barbaro sings are probably the highlight of the entire film), and there are some moments where everything seems to really come together. Any goodwill is squandered by the missed opportunities here. The social and political implications of a premarital sex ban are absolutely insane, and One Night Only takes that premise and uses it to make a bunch of jokes about spending stupid amounts of money on the last condom in the city and attempting to find any warm body to jump into bed with following a fleeting connection at best.

One Night Only

Review by Kaitlyn Booth

5/10

One Night Only fails to do anything with its buckwild premise, which is even more frustrating than just being a mostly unfunny, unsexy romantic comedy. 

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