There are many reasons to lament the decline of romantic comedy films at the box office, but One Night Only gives me another reason: Monica Barbaro would slay in them. This week’s new comedy is the best showcase ever for the actress, way better than her Oscar-nominated turn in A Complete Unknown. Portraying a working musician named Allie in an alternate version of New York City, Barbaro gets to sing, dance, and play the piano, and she spends much of the movie in a high-hemmed dress that makes her legs look a thousand miles long. Portraying someone looking for love in a city that’s sex-obsessed, she sulkily slurps a soup dumpling in a Chinese restaurant while the couples around her are doing it in the booths. Her excellence here only makes me sad, because if Hollywood were making more romantic comedies, she might be just as good in a better movie.
You see, the film takes place in a near-future America where all single people are kept under surveillance and forbidden from having carnal relations with one another except for one night per year. Basically, the story here is The Purge, but applied to sex instead of violence. One of Allie’s dates that night (an uncredited Nicholas Braun) explains how the surveillance works, which makes her speculate that the biotech could be used to cure Parkinson’s. “There’s no money in that shit!” says the tech bro. “Are we gonna fuck or what?” It’s nice to see little touches around the edges of the action like pharmacies charging four figures for condoms on that night.
Ah, but this plot convenience isn’t really that convenient, raising more questions than it cares to answer. The script by Travis Braun — no relation to Nicholas, apparently — doesn’t have the wit to connect this to the Trump regime’s attempts to police women’s bodies. Since this fictional world is policing men’s bodies as well, it won’t be just libertarians who find this setup downright dystopian. Somehow the movie fails to reference that old chestnut about how abortion would be legal everywhere if men got pregnant. If this happened in real life, I’d be bombing government offices. (Come to think of it, why am I not doing that anyway?)
Also, if this happened, business would be booming among divorce lawyers and tourist agencies directing Americans to countries where they could have sex without marriage. The movie hasn’t thought its central conceit through. More grievously, the love story at its center doesn’t really need it. The device is really just a gimmick, and unlike the lack of dialogue in the current Motor City, it’s not a particularly effective one.
That love story is between Allie and Owen (Callum Turner), a pizzeria manager whose girlfriend (Maya Hawke) unceremoniously dumps him a few hours before the night in question because she wants to try out another man. The plot unfolds over the night in question as our two protagonists repeatedly run into each other while attempting to have sex with other people. The hijinks leave both of them stranded naked in public at different points in the story, and everywhere they go, there are couples, threesomes, and more sexing in every place you can think of and some that you can’t. (The intimacy coordinator on this film is Chelsey Cary, and whatever they paid her, it wasn’t enough.) Director Will Gluck has a feel for the snappy tone and farcical rhythms that this piece needs.
The Englishman Turner has enough lumpen charm and chemistry with Barbaro to prevent this from being a one-woman show. The non-binary pop singer King Princess is impressive in their acting debut as Allie’s hetero best friend, Charlie Gillespie contributes as a rock singer who seems too good to be true because he is, and Bobby Cannavale and Pete Davidson portray actors in a TV cop show whose filming Owen unwittingly interrupts. These give the movie some texture.
What makes this Gluck’s best comedy since Easy A is the lead actress. Where Easy A benefited immensely from Emma Stone’s straight-shooting intelligence, One Night Only has a comparable performance from Barbaro as someone jaded and exasperated with both the dating scene and her job (which has her singing commercial jingles with the words “plaque psoriasis” in the lyrics) but still hopeful of finding love. Even she can’t overcome the ridiculousness of the premise here. However, we would note that people out there are still making good romantic comedies. Let’s hope she finds her way into one, or better yet, a musical. A talent like hers deserves a better vehicle.
One Night Only
Starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner. Directed by Will Gluck. Written by Travis Braun. Rated R.
