By Tyler Banark

Insufferable, uninspired, cringeworthy, and downright stale; these are the words I would use to describe Will Gluck’s new rom-com, One Night Only. Easily one of the most unfunny movies of the year, One Night Only looks to focus on hookup culture as a government-mandated outlaw, with an annual Purge event where singles can get together and do what they want. While it’s a premise that could be promising if put in the right hands, it’s utterly wasted. The movie is an attempt to vehicle Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro from standout supporting actors to leading ones, but it fails at that too. There are just so many things wrong here, and it wouldn’t be easy to simply count those ways. 

Now let me clarify: from what I’ve seen thus far from Turner and Barbaro, I have been mostly satisfied. The former is charming in last year’s Eternity and got the job done in 2023’s The Boys in the Boat, while the latter stole the show in 2024’s A Complete Unknown and had teensy weensy minor parts in Top Gun: Maverick and Crime 101. Neither has had a moment in the spotlight leading a film, and unfortunately, One Night Only was a failed attempt for them. Turner and Barbaro have no chemistry and seem to be going through the motions of a script that’s one-dimensional. The movie even tries to sprinkle in cameos here and there to add humor or prompt audiences to recreate the Rick Dalton meme, but they were all throwaways and nothing more.

The only two decent things to come of One Night Only were that some of the jokes towards the beginning actually had me laughing to myself, but that was it. The other part was that there’s secretly a sci-fi element to this movie that could’ve worked and been cool if the movie had focused more on it. In the world of this movie, premarital sex is illegal in the US, and everyone has to have a tattoo on their wrist with a certain color indicating whether they’re married or not. The titular night allows singles to have sex for 12 hours, and that’s it. Several times throughout the movie, we see news shows discussing the upcoming night and showing a countdown of how much time remains. It’s all expositional, and the countless jingles for sex-related product commercials add little to it and are there for the sake of a laugh.   

 I do wish that everyone involved here can rebound from this disaster. From Turner and Barbaro to the rom-com genre as a whole, One Night Only is an unfortunate misstep that’ll likely go down as one of the worst movies of the year. It had potential, and the intention to make bigger names of the people attached to it, but every single effort is undermined by an abysmal script and phoned-in performances that’ll make you shake your head in disappointment. One Night Only isn’t worth the time or money to spend, and I’m betting it’ll be forgotten by the end of the year, or better than that, next week, or even BETTER, tomorrow!

🌟 1/2 stars