REVIEW: “One Night Only”
Courtesy of Universal Pictures
There’s something refreshingly promising about the setup of One Night Only. At first glance, it seems like it has the potential to shake up the romantic comedy formula, either by having some fun with the genre’s tried-and-true tropes or turning a few of them on their heads. Instead, the movie does something far less interesting: it takes a high-concept premise and delivers one of the most conventional rom-coms imaginable. Marketed as a modern, slightly risqué sex comedy, the final product is surprisingly chaste, dutifully going through the meet-cutes, misunderstandings, separations, and romantic revelations we’ve seen countless times before. That doesn’t make it a terrible, or even particularly bad movie. It’s just a rom-com that flirts with being something cleverer, funnier, and more memorable, then decides to settle for being just fine.
The movie takes place in an alternate-reality America where premarital sex has been outlawed, with one exception: a 12-hour window each year when single people are legally permitted to hook up. It’s not an original comparison, but it’s hard not to think of The Purge, except instead of racing around free to murder whoever they’d like, people are racing around trying to hook up. It’s an absurd conceit with plenty of comedic potential, but One Night Only rarely pushes far enough to make the most of it.
At the center of the chaos are Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner), two New Yorkers who cross paths on the biggest night of the year. Owen is nursing a bruised ego after being dumped by his girlfriend, who’s decided to test the waters elsewhere during the legal window. Allie, meanwhile, is searching for something more genuine amid a sea of transactional hookups. A series of misunderstandings and bad timing keeps throwing them together, and they end up journeying around New York side by side, each trying to make the night happen in their own way.
The movie works surprisingly well at first. Director Will Gluck, who’s previously proven his rom-com mettle with Friends With Benefits and Anyone But You, once again shows that he understands the rhythm of a modern romantic comedy and keeps the story moving at a brisk pace. And there are real flashes of humor and wit, but they’re unfortunately far too brief. For a movie built around such a provocative idea, One Night Only plays things surprisingly safe, missing opportunities to take shots at modern dating and hook-up culture. And given this lack of commentary, the strange conceit of the movie’s central night appears to solely exist in order to create obstacles for the leads, and the more you think about the whole thing, the less any of it makes sense.
Two glaring issues hold the film back even further. The first: its leads simply aren’t very funny. Barbaro and Turner have both proven to be capable dramatic actors, but comedy requires an entirely different skill set, and their performances here prove the old adage that “dying is easy, comedy is hard” right. Both display an ease with what the movie asks them to do, but neither has the natural comic timing that would help the comedic moments become highlights. Funny lines that should elicit laughs instead land with a thud, and banter meant to give the movie some energy frequently feels rehearsed rather than spontaneous. This flaw might be forgivable if the romance carried enough emotional weight to make up for it, but that brings us to the film’s second major problem: Barbaro and Turner have virtually zero chemistry.
Individually, both actors are perfectly likable, and neither is giving a bad performance. Together, though, the spark just isn’t there. One Night Only asks the audience to invest in Allie and Owen because the rules of the genre demand it: two strangers meet, they clash, drift apart, reconnect, and eventually realize they’re meant to be. The screenplay hits every expected beat, insisting that something magical is happening between them, but none of it feels earned or, more importantly, organic. They fall for one another simply because the script says so, and without genuine chemistry to anchor it, the movie’s emotional core feels strangely hollow.
A lively supporting cast (including ‘80s romantic comedy star Molly Ringwald as Owen’s mother) brings a welcome jolt of energy, and a few of Allie and Owen’s solo romantic detours generate some legitimate laughs. But none of it is enough to rescue the central narrative. For a film built around a supposedly unforgettable evening, surprisingly very little of it will stay with viewers once the credits roll.
For audiences nostalgic for the time when major studios routinely churned out mid-budget rom-coms, One Night Only will be a welcome sight, even if it falls short of its potential. Ultimately, for a movie promising a wild night out, it’s disappointing to see it settle for a conventional routine that leaves you wondering why there weren’t more sparks.
One Night Only is currently playing in wide release.