By 
One Night Only (2026)
12 hours can change everything.
Will Gluck has generally been a reliable provider of glossy, good-natured entertainment. From the endlessly rewatchable Easy A (2010) to the breezy box-office success of Anyone But You (2023), his best work understands that romantic comedies need attractive people, sharp banter, a little silliness and enough sincerity to make the inevitable kiss feel worthwhile. Throw in a premise that sounds like The Purge stumbled onto a dating app after three cocktails, and chances were pretty high that One Night Only was going to work.
It does. Not perfectly, not always logically, and certainly not in any way that should be examined under a bright light. But this is a strange, sexy and entertaining rom-com that knows how to make its one legally sanctioned night count.
Directed by Gluck from a script by Travis Braun, One Night Only takes place in an alternate New York City where the United States has slipped into an authoritarian, fascist-leaning dystopia. Several years earlier, Congress introduced “The Mandate,” outlawing sex between unmarried people for 364 days of the year. Unmarried citizens aged 18 and over are implanted with red biosensors that flash whenever they engage in sexual activity, while married couples are fitted with green ones and remain free to do as they please. The only exception comes during one chaotic 12-hour period when the red sensors turn green and singles are legally permitted to have sex — as long as protection is used. Yep. It is basically the sex purge.
Hot, fresh, and emotionally unprepared.
Owen (Callum Turner) owns Claremont Pizza, a Manhattan pizzeria, and has spent months preparing for the big night with his longtime girlfriend, Malika (Maya Hawke). He books an elaborate sushi dinner, brings along a ring and expects the evening to mark the beginning of their future together. Instead, Malika announces that she wants to spend the night sleeping with their neighbor. That’s one expensive way to get dumped.
Elsewhere, Allie (Monica Barbaro) is a talented singer whose career has been reduced to recording cheerful pharmaceutical jingles about uncomfortable medical conditions. A romantic at heart, she is less interested in finding any available body than someone with whom she might share a genuine connection. As the Mandate lifts, Allie joins her friend Jacinta (King Princess) at a bar, only for Jacinta to quickly disappear with Tejan (Okieriete Onaodowan), a charming stranger who claims he’s an actual prince. Later, Allie’s supportive queer roommate and best friend Arya (Quintessa Swindell) dresses her in a tiny green sequined number, then sends her back into the city in search of love — or at least something close enough for one night.
Owen and Allie first collide after he deposits much of that expensive sushi onto the pavement — and partially onto her. It is less of a meet-cute than a meet-puke. They later cross paths while fighting over one of the last condoms available in New York, eventually forming a temporary alliance to help one another find suitable partners before their 12 hours run out. Naturally, the city keeps throwing them back together no matter how hard they try to end the night in somebody else’s bed.
The fascist setting makes One Night Only considerably more interesting than its basic romantic-comedy storyline might suggest. Gluck drops the audience into a world of anti-Mandate graffiti, government warnings, pleasure-detecting technology, mandatory protection and countdown clocks announcing exactly how long everyone has left to get busy.
Sure, not all of it is explored properly. The rules alone raise plenty of questions. How does the government monitor every possible sexual act? During the open window, how would it know whether someone is actually using protection? Why has the population seemingly accepted any of this? How have Arya and the wider queer community apparently managed to dance around the law? And what happens if two unmarried people are close together and their biosensors register what looks like sexual activity, even though they’re actually doing something completely innocent? Does an especially good pizza trigger the police?
Not everything makes sense, but the oddness works in the movie’s favor. This is a bizarre world to drop a romantic comedy into, immediately making everything feel sexier, hornier and weirder than the usual mix of text messages, workplace misunderstandings and conveniently interrupted kisses. The whole setup is clearly played as parody, with the Mandate treated as an absurd fascist overreach rather than anything the movie has sympathy for. There is a much darker story about government control and bodily autonomy sitting beneath the sparkles, but Gluck is more interested in the absurd behavior produced by repression than the politics behind it. That leaves some satirical potential untouched, while also allowing the comedy to keep moving.
And moving it certainly does.
The events of the night range from funny to amusing to plain WTF. The increasingly desperate search for a condom becomes an adventure of its own. Allie’s attempt to sleep with motorcycle-riding bad boy Max (Andrew Burnap) turns into a police raid that leaves the pair outside with very little clothing, while a later encounter with self-absorbed musician Ezra Stone (Charlie Gillespie) is so random and over-the-top that it feels as though another movie has briefly wandered into this one. Add police stations, exclusive parties and disastrous potential partners, and the journey across New York becomes a sexually frustrated odyssey.
Some jokes land better than others, but there is almost always something happening. Whenever one encounter begins to lose energy, another unusual character enters or the city throws up another obstacle. If nothing else, One Night Only is entertaining.
Gluck also keeps the production sexy, dirty and sparkly. New York is covered in anti-Mandate tags, revealing dresses, barely clothed bodies and suggestive advertisements, with Yaron Orbach’s cinematography capturing the city like a giant nightclub where everyone has waited an entire year for the doors to open. There is plenty of skin and visual innuendo, but Gluck rarely goes fully explicit. He is more interested in anticipation — the possibility that two people might finally stop talking and act on the attraction sitting between them. Sometimes the tease is more effective than the act.
Beneath all the sexual tension there’s a surprisingly sincere story about intimacy, choice and the difference between wanting sex and wanting someone. The Mandate has supposedly protected the sanctity of marriage, but it has really turned physical connection into another stressful appointment. Everyone has a timetable, a target and a rapidly disappearing window in which to achieve it. Owen and Allie are surrounded by people treating partners like items on a shopping list, yet both are secretly hoping for something more meaningful. Braun’s original idea came from condensing the bad dates, false sparks, ghosting and romantic disappointments that can precede finding the right person into one heightened evening. That remains the emotional center of the story: attraction can happen quickly, but identifying which connection is genuine takes more than a glowing green sensor and an available bedroom.
The film is not anti-sex, although its sweeter final stretch occasionally comes close to sounding that way. Instead, it suggests that freedom means being allowed to choose what intimacy looks like. For some characters, that means enjoying the wildest night possible. For Owen and Allie, it gradually means recognizing that the person they most want is the one who has been beside them through every humiliating side quest.
Everything works because of the performances. Monica Barbaro brings an immediately likeable mixture of confidence, awkwardness and vulnerability to Allie. She can sell the broad physical comedy, look completely at home in the movie’s skimpy outfits and still reveal the disappointed romantic beneath the surface. Her singing talents also get a workout through the pharmaceutical-jingle subplot, which produces several of the strangest soundtrack choices imaginable. Callum Turner gives Owen a bruised sweetness without entirely sanding away his ego. He begins the night hurt and determined to prove something, but Turner gradually reveals someone whose romantic plans have always been more important to him than the person standing inside them. Together, Barbaro and Turner share easy chemistry. Their banter feels playful rather than overly rehearsed, and it is not difficult to see the connection developing beneath all the wingman arrangements and arguments. The attraction is obvious, but the smaller moments — pizza, conversation, shared embarrassment and quiet concern — sell the possibility that they might actually enjoy one another once everyone puts their clothes back on.
The supporting players keep the night lively. Maya Hawke brings an amusing bluntness to Malika, Owen’s girlfriend whose decision detonates his carefully planned evening. Julia Fox plays Skye, an alluring bartender and possible hookup who seems entirely at home in this glittery universe. Quintessa Swindell is fun as Arya, Allie’s supportive roommate, while young Mateo Ray steals several moments as Troy, the foul-mouthed 12-year-old she has somehow ended up babysitting during the horniest night of the year. Molly Ringwald plays Owen’s mother Linda, while LeVar Burton appears as her partner Rick, giving Owen another surprise when he returns home expecting comfort. Their limited screen time is strange, amusing and exactly the sort of unexpected pairing that suits the night. Este Haim, Pete Davidson, Bobby Cannavale and a few other familiar faces help ensure each new stop has something memorable waiting around the corner.
One Night Only does not explore its fascist world enough, several of its rules collapse under casual examination and not every comedic detour hits. Yet its strangeness is also what separates it from the increasingly interchangeable selection of modern romantic comedies. Gluck keeps everything moving, makes the city look invitingly filthy and places two charismatic performers at the centre of the chaos.
The result is sexy without becoming explicit, sweet without losing its dirtiness and romantic without pretending that finding somebody is ever straightforward. One Night Only is a fun, unique and agreeably odd rom-com that takes the familiar search for love and drops it into one of the strangest dating worlds imaginable.
One night might be all these characters are legally allowed — but this one is enjoyable enough to happily do again.
4 / 5 – Recommended
Reviewed by Dan Cachia (Mr. Movie)
One Night Only is distributed by Universal Pictures Australia
