Movie review by Greg Carlson
Discussing the parameters, ramifications, and impossibilities of the absolutely outlandish premise of Will Gluck’s latest movie is nearly equal to the fun of gawping at the heavenly bodies of stars Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro as they work their way toward an inevitable rom-com resolution in “One Night Only.” Several wags have taken to calling the high-concept film “The Sex Purge,” as we land in a version of America in which the government has implemented a prohibition on unmarried intercourse for all but twelve free-for-all hours on a single night of the year. Despite the tantalizing politics hanging ripe on the vine, Gluck sticks close to the usual genre trappings.
The director, working from a screenplay by Travis Braun, fills in just enough information to allow pleasure-seeking viewers a sliver of suspended-disbelief verisimilitude during the world building that sets the stage. Information placed in the background and at the fringes of the frame makes for a clumsier version of the anamorphosis described by Slavoj Žižek in his perceptive notes on “Children of Men.” Signage and graffiti protesting the no-sex mandate pop up while cable news hosts and talking heads argue the values of the legislation. Corporate advertisements for condoms, lubricants, and less obvious products point toward some kind of capitalist buy-in, although the revelation that citizens have digital devices implanted in their wrists to biometrically monitor carnal activity sends a chill down the spine.
The desire to avoid committing a sex crime keeps most everyone in line, even if Orwell’s Big Brotherly predictions might otherwise put a damper on our enjoyment of the hijinx by cutting too close to our real world’s march toward authoritarianism and a 24/7 surveillance state. “One Night Only” essays and reviews opting to address these less savory aspects of Braun’s dystopia continue to sprout. One of the best of the bunch is a “Vulture” piece by Roxana Hadadi in which the author calls the film the “bleakest political allegory [of the] year, one in which Americans are sheep who willingly accept the rules of a conservative government; corporations support unpopular policies because it helps them make more money; and preening politicians go on TV to discuss their agendas with little pushback from journalists.”
All of this can be true and simultaneously coexist with the scopophilic charge provided by the movies. Gluck understands that much. We desperately want to see Barbaro’s aspiring composer/performer Allie and Turner’s pizza shop proprietor Owen get together in lust and in love. And, having consumed hundreds of erotically-charged silver screen romances built on the foundations of Lubitsch’s perfect touch, we expect that our star-crossed beauties will repeatedly postpone the consummation of their desire to heighten and intensify our excitement.
Given the ticking-clock urgency of the narrative, Gluck sketches a familiar range of slapstick complications standing in the way of true love’s course. Even with our eyes glued to Turner and Barbaro, the episodic structure allows for comic cameos by Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton and a bunch of other recognizable faces. Allie and Owen feign some degree of moral resolve by denying the obvious; Owen’s long-term girlfriend blindsides him by deciding to sleep with someone else and he can’t quite decide what to do about it. Working together and splitting apart, and then repeating the cycle, the protagonists experience a compressed courtship that calls up everything from the effortless brilliance of “After Hours” (1985) to the mostly forgotten “Timer” (2009).