“Maybe the Fascists Were Right”
DIRECTED BY WILL GLUCK/2026
It’s interesting to wonder what could’ve possibly inspired the high-concept yet flimsy premise for Will Gluck’s The Purge-but-for-sex rom-com One Night Only. The info-dump in the opening provides a few hints; explaining how the national ban on sex was only passed three years ago immediately draws a comparison to the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade, America’s very-real nightmare that polices bodily autonomy and has made people more apprehensive towards sex. However, the film only explains how this drastic change was simply “a lot.”
There’s also the other recent rejection towards sex in media, with Gluck explaining how his “long pages of empirical data” suggests younger generations dislike seeing such an intimate act on screens everywhere, not to mention the messy gender politics that comes with such films. Although Gluck attempts satire over a sex-obsessive dating scene, his point becomes moot once it’s explained that a compromise was made after the mandate was made into law, where this dystopian government has allowed only one night a year where everyone is allowed to legally have sex. In a world where everyone is tattooed status symbols that can somehow read your body levels to figure out if you had sex while single, a crime that will put any person in jail, of course everyone is crazed over getting it on during a 12-hour time limit.
That is, except for Gluck’s anaphrodisiac main leads. For aspiring singer Allie (Monica Barbaro) and pizzeria owner Owen (Callum Turner), their separate journeys in finding someone to have sex with on this special night is driven not by horniness but in finding that special someone. Owen, heartbroken after his girlfriend Malika (Maya Hawke) decides to see other people during the one night, is encouraged by his mother (Molly Wringwald) to enjoy himself. Allie, abandoned by her best friend but emboldened by her Gay Best Friend/roommate Arya (Quintessa Swindell) to put herself out there (before anyone can question how badly this law impacts queer people, Travis Braun’s script quickly shoves that aside with his gay stand-in simply saying that they manage to get freaky and sneaky, ignoring the possibility that this world’s conservative government would realistically have more restrictions on the LBGTQ+). These Not Like Other Straights manage to cross paths throughout the night, starting a constant will-they-won’t-they/rivals-to-lovers arc that, depending on the average person’s mileage of rom-com tropes, will either be cutely charming or constantly grating.
A follow-up to his successful Anyone But You, Gluck continues the dynamic of bickering cuteness with Allie and Owen, forcing Barbaro and Turner to turn up their charm as their roles speak in nothing but quips and jabs until they’re supposed to realize they are falling in love. The issue with this, besides Turner’s likability only going so far, is how smug the script makes the main couple. Carrying a holier-than-thou attitude as they try to go around having sex with strangers, as seen in the film punching down upon any other horny person to be a charmless weirdo or a superficial nothingburger, the two become less compelling to follow as their supposed-to-be-relatable hang-ups are made apparent. The self-absorption coming from Allie and Owen only matches a film that thinks it’s cooler than it actually is. Everyone around them turns into some sort of rom-com cliche, albeit without any passion or charm behind said cliches (case in point a child that the Gay Best Friend has to babysit for the night, an annoying side character that only speaks in lewd sex jokes that demands the audience to think he’s funny). In Allie and Owen’s eyes, they become nothing more than a stepping stone or a shoulder to cry on for the protagonists that causes the film to give way to thoughtless artificiality.
Its attempts at self-aware cynicism not only prevent One Night Only from being the light, frothy rom-com it wants to be, but also bring out an uglier side with the implications of its premise. There is a noted aggrievance in this universe, from the numerous signs placed on windows and lawns that say “Fuck the Mandate” to graffiti hidden in the background, as well as one of Allie’s failed hook-ups being popular singer Ezra Stone (Craig Gillespie), whose open defiance of the mandate is seen as nothing but performative activism. Tied together by the main couple’s passivity over such a restrictive law, One Night Only dares to present a more centrist view on sexual politics, fitting the protagonist’s perspective of noting the messed up nature of the law, but not having an immediate desire to change things. Those who do are seen as immature, for why should they put that much effort into getting rid of the mandate when even the queers figured out a way to get past those pesky bylaws? And for the straights, maybe this restriction on sex is actually a good thing, a way to get to know each other and form a desirable connection before they do the deed. Besides, that’s what Allie and Owen learn at the end.
If it didn’t share such a bleak and compliant view on things, One Night Only could’ve risen as an ingenious satire on the way things are run in America right now. In a world where immigrants are targeted by an independent task force that goes out of its way to abuse its own authority, to a point of shooting bystanders in the head while in public, where a 10-year-old rape victim had to travel across the country for a safe and legal abortion while pro-life supporters unironically encouraged the child to carry her baby to term, where state laws can get away with forcing transgender citizens to have their AGAB on their driver’s license, or how the military can start a war in support of Israel by bombing a girl’s school in Iran, or kidnap the ex-president of Venezuala, or support a nation that is bombing hospitals and aid camps to a point of the U.N declaring it a genocide, the fact that the average American reacts to this with learned helplessness and social media posts fits incredibly well with the logic of One Night Only.
No one seems to be bothered that much by the mandate, no matter how much it acts as a basic violation of human rights, instead learning to allow their complicity in it and even think of it as a good thing. With its light tone and desperation for fun, this commentary comes off as unintentional; it’s like someone remade The Zone of Interest into We Bought a Zoo.
On a political standpoint, its appeal to an abstinence guideline to how everyone should handle sex is obviously appalling and naive, and on a genre perspective completely misunderstands the sexual tension of a rom-com. Sure, classic rom-coms like Pillow Talk and It Happened One Night hid the sexual tension in Hays-code language, but there was still a sense of primal attraction that undercut the notion that the couples’ relationship in either was romantic. Sexual innuendoes and visible ankles said the quiet horniness out loud. One Night Only may try to imbue some sexuality by having Melissa Barbaro wear a revealing dress, but it remains annoyingly at odds with its understanding of sex, considering its tendency to kinkshame (God forbid Molly Ringwald and LeVar Burton get to do anything fun in this) and lacking a desire to explore the heavier aspects. On a night where people are legally allowed to do anything sexual, there’s really no orgies?
It all gives way to a core fear Gluck and Braun accidentally show throughout. Beyond a misunderstanding of how sexual politics work, the film’s apprehensiveness towards sex (either to prevent scaring The Long Pages of Empirical Data or a personal ick towards the act) only makes its misanthropic nature more apparent. It’s portrayal of modern dating culture connected to no one, as seen in everyone online being extremely confused by its premise and focusing on its improbable flaws and not its relatability. It’s mocking towards any other person desiring sex deflates any fun the premise could give, and the themes only bring out a conservative pleasure in seeing a Hollywood film say the main problem right now is too much sex, an issue that can be solved with complicity.
Thankfully, the low box-office numbers, as well as more sex-positive films like I Want Your Sex and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma coming out around the same time, is enough of a rebuttal to silence the latter’s pessimism. But in reality, the next time someone says that a person criticizing Israel’s politics is being antisemitic, or if someone gets fired for not grieving the loss of Charlie Kirk, a guy that openly admitted to letting his young daughter give birth if she were raped and impregnated, or if another person gets killed by an ICE officer, or more restrictions are placed on women, queer people, or anyone in general, get mad. Show your outrage. Do more than make a poster.
To the people that live in the world of One Night Only, go have sex.