One Night Only (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

One Night Only

ONE NIGHT ONLY (2026)

Starring Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Maya Hawke, Julia Fox, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Okieriete Onaodowan, Este Haim, King Princess, Ben Marshall, Nicholas Braun, Quintessa Swindell, Mateo Ray, Michelle Hurd, Radio Man, Roma Maffia, Priya Jain, Ella Loudon, Chyril Paulann, Ziwe, Grace Dumdaw, Pete Davidson and Bobby Cannavale.

Screenplay by  Travis Braun.

Directed by Will Gluck.

Distributed by Universal Pictures. 102 minutes. Rated R.

If you ever wondered what would happen if they rebooted The Purge, but they made it about fucking rather than killing and made it funny rather than scary – well here’s your answer.

Funny thing, I actually like it better like this. Granted The Purge is not exactly a high bar to jump – although it is a perfectly fine cheesy horror film with a rather brilliant concept. And One Night Only will not land on any best of the year lists.

It’s a typical Will Gluck film. The director had previously made the cheerleader comedy Fired Up, the Emma Stone breakout Easy A, the Justin Timberlake / Mila Kunis will-they-or-won’t-they tease of Friends with Benefits, and the Sydney Sweeney / Glen Powell hate-at-first sight rom-com Anyone But You. He has a very consistent style as a filmmaker; smart and surprisingly fun, but light-as-air confections with slightly generic titles in which a Hollywood cliché is parodied and embraced at the same time. And his stars are inevitably gorgeous and in love.

The Purge connection comes in the high concept of this film. In the extremely near future, in order to make marriage more appealing, the US government mandates that there will be no more casual sex. Unless you are in a committed relationship, you are not allowed to have sex. This is except for one night every year, when all bets are off, all laws are rescinded, and for 12 hours only, the singletons can have sex to their hearts' content.

The audience is thrown right into the deep end of the high concept. Throughout the film, there are little hints and political jabs which partially explain how the world came to be in this place. However, they don’t even matter all that much, they are just providing some context for the admittedly ridiculous premise.

The irony is, though, on a night which is meant to be a bacchanal of free sex, One Night Only spends its running time surveying the disastrous nights of what seem to be the last two hopeless romantics in New York City. They hate the idea that they have to work so hard for a hookup that they don’t even really want, they just feel that they should do it while they can. And they hate the fact that every single time they get close, it becomes a catastrophe.

Monica Barbaro is Allie, a beautiful but neurotic woman who moved to New York to become a singer, but has a massive case of stage fright, so she is stuck in a dead-end job singing pharmaceutical jingles to the tunes of recent pop hits. Her best friend dumps her early in the night when she meets a guy, and Allie must spend the rest of the night getting hit on by every loser in town, and even when she decides periodically to go for it all of the hookups blow up in her face.

Callum Turner is Owen, the owner of a local pizza parlor. He is planning to take advantage of the one-night-only to have a romantic dinner with his girlfriend (Maya Hawke) and propose to her, but she beats him to the punch, telling him she wants to have sex with someone else that night. He’s heartbroken, humiliated, and trying to prove – mostly to himself – that he’s not the loser in his breakup. His whole night is fueled by pride, panic, and emotional whiplash. He’s out of practice in the dating and pickup world and every time he thinks he may score, fate throws in a monkey wrench.

Throughout the night, they keep running into each other at the worst possible moments – two people who clearly click but are determined to spend One Night Only with literally anyone else. Every attempt at a hookup fails spectacularly, and every accidental encounter between them feels like the universe nudging them toward the obvious. They fight it, of course, because they’re both too neurotic and too bruised to admit what’s right in front of them.

Of course, for all of this to work, there must be some serious chemistry between the leads, and that is definitely the case here. Barbaro shows movie-star glamour mixed with girl-next-door insecurity and makes it completely believable that pretty much every guy in New York would make an ass out of himself to get together with her. Turner’s burly awkwardness – the film even makes a running gag of his big ears – is sweet and vulnerable, his chiseled abs covering up his fear of loneliness. Turner plays this character dichotomy with smart confidence.

These two are really the suns in this film’s particular galaxy, but there are some weird and funny stars orbiting their stories. Some of the more interesting supporting characters include Molly Ringwald as Owen’s cringeworthy mother and LeVar Burton as her just a bit too friendly part-time lover. Julia Fox plays a pretty and compassionate bartender who takes pity on Owen (and she gets bonus points because her character works at the famous White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, one of my favorite bars in the world.)

Ben Marshall has a lot of fun as Allie’s rock-star crush who turns out to be a self-absorbed asshole. Ella Loudon also has fun as a high-society doyenne who is willing to give Owen a shot until his insecurities make her bolt. Mateo Ray steals several scenes as perhaps the most obnoxious 12-year-old ever, and Quintessa Swindell plays Allie’s lesbian roommate who is making $5,000 just to babysit him for the one night. And Michelle Hurd has a lot of exasperated fun as a police officer whose once-admirable career has been shifted into monitoring the legal imbroglios of a sex-starved populace.

But they are all just more of the background noise in a truly unhinged night. For all its high-concept chaos, One Night Only works best when it stops chasing the joke and simply watches two people try – and fail and try again – to connect in a world that insists connection is obsolete. It’s silly, it’s messy, it’s uneven, but it’s also surprisingly sweet. And sometimes that’s enough.

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2026 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 6, 2026.