A One Mann’s Movies review of “One Night Only”. (2026, 3.5*, 15).
There is something in Hollywood called “The Black List”, comprising what are deemed to be the best scripts on the shelf that have yet to be turned into movies. Travis Braun holds the distinction of having held the top position on that list, in 2024 with One Night Only and in 2023 with a script for Bad Boy – a horror film with Ke Huy Quan and a dog that disappeared without trace last year. (So this might tell you that being top of this list is not necessarily a recipe for success!)
In this case, the concept – The Purge but for sex rather than violence – has some legs. And the film has its moments, particularly in the first half. However, for me, the story descended into an unnecessary ‘will they/won’t they’ spiral, when all the audience was wanting was for them to bonk themselves stupid so they could go home!
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
We are in the bat-shit crazy US of A in the near future and in a move that would have seemed absurd ten years ago (but less so today) the far right administration has imposed a ban on pre-marital sex – the “chastity mandate” – policed by a chip embedded in every citizen. The ban is absolute, except for one night per year… and that night is tonight. We follow two individuals – Owen (Callum Turner) and Allie (Monica Barbaro) – through that sex-fuelled night.
Certification:
UK: 15; US: R. (From the BBFC website: “Strong language, sex references.”)
Talent:
Starring: Callum Turner, Monica Barbaro, Maya Hawke, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Charlie Gillespie,
Alexandra Gluck, King Princess, Julia Fox, Sydney Cole Alexander, Ella Loudon, Quintessa Swindell, Mateo Ray.
Directed by: Will Gluck.
Written by: Travis Braun.
Running Time: 1h 42m.
Review:
Positives:
- I really liked the general raunchy nature of the premise: you can quite see that the Christian right in Trump’s America would be pushing “family values” such that the administration – with the right available technology – would implement the mandate. The bit that rather beggars belief is that they would allow this one night of debauchery to happen! The film makes good fun of the politics involved: an earnest congressman (William Franke) is on TV espousing that “We wanted to go back to a time when sex was restricted to the sanctity of marriage”… which you can imagine written down in black-and-white in the MAGA handbook! Owen at one point admits “Maybe the fascists were right about this one”. And a little later, someone blames the whole thing on Obama: when challenged there is an arm-wavy talk of “you know… the pendulum effect”. That made me laugh!
- The stars of the piece – Callum Turner (my friend*) and the brilliant Monica Barbaro – make an amiable couple with significant chemistry between them. Barbaro proves that her singing in A Complete Unknown (she played Joan Baez) wasn’t a fluke: the girl can really sing! Here she does some funny advertorial covers (see below), but she also gets to sing a duet of Air Supply’s “I’m All Out of Love” with ‘dream date’ Max (Andrew Burnap) – one of the high points of the film for me – and also sings Yazoo’s “Only You” in front of her pop idol Ezra Strong (Charlie Gillespie) (which feels like a missed opportunity for a cameo by a real-life music star).
- Barbaro sings advertorial music as her job: she does jingles. We open the film in comic style with her singing dodgy lyrics for a Psoriasis advert… for “Levantavel”. Then we cut to see her walking down the street to the classic song “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton. And I was thinking “is there really the word vagina in those lyrics…. have I been singing it wrong for all these years”. That was before realising that we are actually back in her work-world and she is singing a jingle for Vag-a-clear! It’s very well done.
- The production design team had a lot of fun with this one. There is a lot of funny detail in the background, including graffiti – “Fuck the Mandate” – and some very amusing signs, including a kind of Kama Sutra poster showing all the different aspects of intimacy that were “OK” and all of those that were definitely illegal!
- There are a load of fun cameos in the mix: Nicholas Braun plays a bar-fly date from hell; Pete Davidson and Bobby Cannavale play actors filming a cop drama in the street (the reason for all of the filming on this night is extremely tenuous); US comedienne Ziwe Fumudoh and Haim-star Este Haim play a couple of bouncers; songstress King Princess plays Allie’s un-helpful friend Jacinta (who drops her for an African prince like a rock) and there are some funny photo additions of Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney that made me laugh out loud. It was also great to see the combination of Molly Ringwald and Levar ‘Star Trek TNG’ Burton on screen as Owen’s Mum and friend: although I’ll never look at shrink-wrap the same way again (but what a fun idea!)
- Naturally, on this night of a thousand bonks, something in very short supply is condoms and much fun is had in Owen and Allie’s individual pursuits of the last condom in New York. A comic scene has Owen trying to improvise with a rubber glove and KY-Jelly. (Two fingers Callum… really? 😉 ). A slightly off-colour running joke has a randy 12 year old, Troy (Mateo Ray) being babysat by Arya (Quintessa Swindell), Allie’s roommate. Troy possesses a condom that’s “wide fit”. (“Interested now ladies?” Ugh!)
- The inevitable ending when it comes neatly sidesteps a top of the Empire State meet-cute (again!) and plumps for somewhere else. It’s a cute chick-flick sort of moment if you like that sort of thing.
(* Not really my friend… but I was on set with him in “The Boys in the Boat“… nice chap. So that makes us bosom buddies doesn’t it?)
Negatives:
- As above, the first two acts of this film have a lot going for them: comedy (it beats the 6-laugh test), a neat premise, engaging stars. But it just pratted about in the third reel so much that I started to lose patience with it. The set-up for the film involves the rather distasteful choice of Owen’s fiancée Malika (Maya Hawke) wanting to sleep with someone else – just for the experience. (Thousands of viewers go off her immediately.) And we never really need to return to this storyline. But we do, and its just one of a number of convoluted loops in the storytelling, including an Allie/Owen imagined sex-scene, that made me internally yell at the screen “just get on with it”. This is a 102 minute film that would have worked much better as a 90 minute film with some of the loops taken out.
Summary Thoughts:
I read that this film had a LOT more graphical sex in it. (As the classic Matt Damon line goes, “on the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door, in the tub, in the car up against the minibar” (LOL, this Jimmy Kimmel clip is still so funny!)). But after the film was shown at test screenings, the audiences felt uncomfortable with the level of sex on the streets (prudes!) so much of it got excised. I just feel for the Supporting Artists, who bared all and simulated sex acts just for their moment of exhibitionism to be chopped: but at least they would have been well paid for it!
So, the film’s a mixed bag for me. It’s a nice concept for a film… but it’s a single concept that gets rather mined to death. I was originally 3 stars on this one, but having written this review and thought of the things in the first two acts that really made me laugh, I think that’s a bit mean. I wouldn’t mind seeing this one again with the Illustrious Mrs Movie Man, so for that reason I’ve upped it by a half star. (But now 3.5*s feels a bit generous. Can I go for a quarter star on this one please?)
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvKoSR3O4NQ.
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