One Night Only is the charming surprise of the summer. The movie has far more to offer than its quirky premise, starting with lively performances from leads Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner. This is a film that sneaks up on the audience, melting hearts in between the condom jokes.
The premise—that premarital sex is illegal in the United States except for one night a year—and the TV commercials make the movie seem like it’s going to be another raunchy sex comedy. And there are plenty of R-rated jokes from the get-go, since obviously sex is the topic on everyone’s minds. But there’s an important distinction: screenwriter Travis Braun avoids the low-hanging fruit of crude humor. His jokes are adult but smartly funny, and he and director Will Gluck come up with laughs in different ways. One of the subtle strengths of the film is its visual gags, most notably a sign on display in a police waiting room. One Night Only‘s sense of humor is akin to early-era Bob’s Burgers: funny, naughty but also just plain fun.
Barbaro, whose career has exploded since her underrated role on Chicago Justice, plays Allie with the right combination of sharp wit and yet charming vulnerability. Allie is frustrated on multiple levels: not only is she single but her music career has been limited to singing commercial-jingle knockoffs of famous songs—which is actually great, because it enables the audience to hear Barbaro’s wonderful singing voice. Her versatility is on full display in this movie.
Elsewhere, Turner’s character Owen is thrown when his girlfriend tells him she plans on sleeping with someone else just because she can. And because the other guy looks like Glen Powell (who doesn’t appear in the film beyond a LinkedIn picture, but that’s one of two references Gluck makes to his other solid rom-com, Anyone But You). Owen complains about being a “nice guy,” but Turner (The Capture) nails that; he’s an underdog in the best way, showing that being a “nice guy” doesn’t mean being boring.
Allie and Owen literally bump into each other in a “meet-cute” moment, and the actors have exactly the right chemistry for a movie like this. They’re fun to watch, whether they’re arguing or having a quiet moment. So many romantic comedies mistake witty banter for actual chemistry, but Barbaro and Turner do a wonderful job of building up their characters’ rapport to get to the emotional payoff. It helps that Braun gives Owen and Allie their own individual storylines, so that the characters are not solely defined by waiting for them to get together. The screenplay provides a sense of who each of them are, which gives Turner and Barbaro their own moments to shine, while also strengthening the argument for why their characters are a good match together.
The film’s biggest issue is that it really doesn’t match its marketing. Anyone who comes in expecting a raunchy sex comedy may be thrown when One Night Only shows off its emotional side, and romantic comedy fans might take one look at the promos and not know how much depth the film truly has. It’s more of a throwback to the fun romantic comedies of the ’80s and ’90s than a National Lampoon movie. The supporting cast is also underdeveloped, save Molly Ringwald as Owen’s mom and LeVar Burton as her love interest; the two steal the scenes in which they appear. (You’ll never look at bubble wrap the same way again.)
But One Night Only belongs to Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, both separately and as a great screen couple. Their charm and their reactions smooth over the script’s less successful jokes, and they both have fantastic comic timing. Yet most importantly, they bring out the inner lives of their characters, so that the movie becomes about more than whether or not Allie and Owen get together. It’s that added layer of depth that makes it something special. It’s laugh-out-loud fun, it’s sexy when it needs to be, but it’s also genuinely romantic. And it’s worth watching more than once.
One Night Only is in theaters now. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.
