One Night Only Review: A Rom-Com That Mistakes Fascism for Flirting

A Cute Comedy Set in a Nightmare

One Night Only

Directed by: Will Gluck

Written by: Name redacted out of kindness on the part of the critic.

Starring: Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner

Released: August 7, 2026

One Night Only is a frothy, sexy rom-com about how cute it would be to capitulate to the whims of a fascist technocracy. For reasons the movie is too dumb to invent, the government has made premarital sex illegal except for one night of the year: August 7 and 8, from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

The makers of One Night Only think this makes for an adorable romantic complication for stars Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro, while remaining blissfully oblivious to the fact that they’ve crafted a cute comedy set inside a full-blown dystopia.

Satire Without a Clue

The plot follows Barbaro as Allie, a professional singer of commercial jingles that rip off already not-great pop songs. The movie is convinced this running gag is hilarious and not merely a secret advertisement for various prescription drugs.

That’s the thing about One Night Only that is truly grating: the film thinks it’s performing satire. Sadly, it is far too idiotic to remotely approach satire. Instead, the jokey commercials don’t come off as a critique of the wall-to-wall attempts by drug companies to hook every American on some alphabet-soup medication. They play more like, “Aren’t these ads silly, guys?”

No, they’re not silly. They’re gross and dangerous. They use scare tactics to convince people to “tell your doctor” they need drugs their doctor never suggested in the first place. This level of marketing isn’t cute or funny. It’s yet another dystopian element the movie desperately tries to paint over with cotton candy.

Two Characters Too Dumb for Their Own Story

Callum Turner co-stars as Allie’s equally insufficiently brained love interest, Owen, a pizza shop owner who plans to propose to his girlfriend on this night. Instead, said girlfriend, played by a Maya Hawke who should have known better than to make this movie, tells him she’s going to sleep with one of their neighbors because she’s not quite ready to settle down.

Naturally, this sends Allie and Owen on a collision course. But these two characters are so dimwitted that the screenplay constantly interrupts them with random, moronic roadblocks that are supposed to pass for comic misunderstandings.

Their first meeting ends with Owen vomiting on Allie’s shoes because…vomit is funny?

When they meet again, Allie is somehow too braindead to operate an ATM while trying to withdraw money to buy the last available condom in New York.

The Dystopia the Movie Thinks Is Adorable

Oh, have I failed to mention that in this dystopian future condoms are government-mandated for all premarital sex?

You’re probably wondering how the government could possibly enforce laws that should be easily broken in the privacy of one’s home.

I mentioned earlier that this is a technocracy for a reason.

All unmarried Americans have been tattooed with a piece of embedded technology in their wrists that turns green during this one night each year when sex is legal. It can also somehow determine whether the sex is protected or unprotected.

Again, the movie finds this adorable.

Allie’s tattoo is a tiny lighthouse, a tribute to the children’s book her mother read to her as a child. The filmmakers think this detail is charming. The reality is something much closer to a William Gibson plot.

At one point, a character presented as a leader of the anti-mandate movement actually says this annual government sex mandate has made sex special again and that perhaps “the fascists were right this time.”

One of the Year’s Most Misguided Films

At that point I was ready to walk out, but Molly Ringwald is in this movie, and she has a romantic storyline with LeVar Burton. I love both of them enough that I stuck around hoping their far more interesting characters would return.

They do.

Just not nearly enough to rescue what is undoubtedly one of the most misguided, moronic, and utterly insipid films I have seen in years.

One Night Only is the worst movie of 2026.