One Night Only places a traditional romcom against the backdrop of a sci-fi dystopia. A conservative congress orders a chastity mandate for unmarried people across the U.S. A tech surveillance company creates the biometric tattoos used to enforce it. Every August 7 the government allows a purge where singles can have sex. An insecure musician (Monica Barbaro) and a confident pizza chef (Callum Turner) spend the night looking for love. Screenwriter Travis Braun and director Will Gluck enjoy the opportunity to cram a years’ worth of bad dates into one night. The charismatic stars experience meet-cutes, misunderstandings, humiliations and moments of true connection. The problem is neither the filmmakers, nor the characters, seem interested in the bleak world they are trapped in.
The rules of the purge are spelled out by brief conversations, news broadcasts and propaganda posters. Every question answered raises more. The mandate has been in place for three years. Masturbation and AI porn are allowed. The punishment for breaking the rules is prison time. Any resistance shown is performative at best. The subtextual message about liberal complacency is timely. But the filmmakers don’t seem to understand how poorly this attitude reflects on their self-absorbed protagonists. Gluck say the tyrannical government is “not what the movie is about.” But the sour concept easily overshadows the vanilla romance. Why was Gluck so afraid of this screenplay?
This could have been a pitch-black satire. Here’s a tale where cishet men undergo the same body policing that women and LGBTQ+ folks face worldwide. (The underwritten black lesbian spends her night fending off sexual advances from a 12-year-old boy.) In the film’s most interesting sequence (spoiler and trigger warning), Turner is lured into the park by a black woman on a dating app. She strips, assaults and robs him. The cop he reports it to mocks him. It’s an ugly “subversion” of the dangers women of color endure daily. Simultaneously Barbaro and her hook up (a charming Andrew Burnap) are assaulted by officers and dragged naked into a police station after a minor infraction. (Gluck cut scenes of consensual nudity that were making audiences “uncomfortable.” But he indulges in a humiliation kink. Respect.) Barbaro asks a cop what she gains from this and is told “my pension.” There’s a lot to unpack here. But the film quickly moves on.
The third act focuses on the central romance. Turner and Barbaro decide that the build-up and aftermath of sex are more important than the act itself. Nothing wrong with that. Except the sense that the “good” white cishet couple saved each other from a city of “bad” sex-obsessed jerks and minorities. It comes dangerously close to fascist propaganda.
Recent films like Obsession, The Drama and The Invite have been in conversation about the dangers of modern relationships. One Night Only’s characters flirt with a point of view. Then shrug their shoulders. Gluck said he “tried very hard not to make it political.” Some of us don’t have the luxury of ignoring politics.
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