★★ (2 out of 4)
It’s impossible not to love Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner as romcom partners in “One Night Only,” now in theaters from Universal Pictures. The only problem with their bracing screen chemistry is that there’s nothing to ignite it. In place of a script, director Will Gluck (“Anyone but You”) has provided an absurd situation. Think of “One Night Only” as “The Purge” with hormones instead of homicides.
That’s right. For the past three years now, the U.S. government has outlawed premarital sex in an act called “The Mandate” (traditional values must be enforced). Or what? “One Night Only” doesn’t bother with an answer. Accept on faith that singles get a hall pass once a year, in which their anti-sex arm trackers are disabled for 12 hours only. Talk about foreplay!
Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner can’t fight the fact that this misfired sex farce has doused their very real sparks in a blanket of bland.
It has to be on one designated night, Aug. 7, and condoms are decreed by law. Married couples can go at it without restrictions, 24/7, 365 days a year. Presumably singles are a threat to the fictious government that seems hellbent on limiting individual freedoms (hmm, sounds familiar). But for one night only, ladies are encouraged to dress hot in heels and tight dresses. Guy can do what guys usually do. Maybe wear their cleanest dirty shirt.
Who runs this government? The answer is all too clear. And singles have learned to live with it. How to exist in such a world, especially if your world is NYC? That’s the problem facing the two people that Gluck and screenwriter Travis Braun set before us for deconstruction.
Enter Owen. He’s portrayed by Turner (“The Boys in the Boat,” “Eternity”) minus his Brit accent, now tucked away for when he plays the next James Bond if the rumors are true. His new wife, Dua Lipa, can write the new Bond theme. But I digress. As Owen, Turner runs a pizza joint and makes the sweetest sauce for his girlfriend (Maya Hawke). Save the awws. The gf informs Owen she plans to use her 12 hours of sexual freedom to hook up with someone new. And besides, pizza dude figures he can play that game as well.
Enter Allie. That role is aced by Barbaro, Oscar nominated as Joan Baez in “A Complete Unknown,” and a performer with all the right juice to power a long career. Allie is a singer who’s spent the early part of her day recording a stupid jingle for a psoriasis commercial. Look, a singer has to do...whatever. Her gay roomie (Quintessa Swindell) is oblivious to the sex ban. The green sequined dress Allie is wearing is her idea. Ditto the glittery heels.
Her accidental meet cute with Owen starts badly when he blows lunch all over her strappy sandals, booze being the wrong solution to drowning his sorrows over romantic rejection. Yet fate keeps drawing these strangers together, as romcoms do. Their initial reaction to each other is loathing. But you know what that means. Hate is a real aphrodisiac.
This movie doesn’t know the difference between sass and crass. A drawn-out bit about a condom, a rare commodity on a night like this, housed as an object of worship, badly misfires. It’s the sparks between Barbero and Turner that keep the fire lit under this half-baked comic soufflé. With Manhattan looking scruffy and sensational as a backdrop, these two scene-stealers almost make us forget they’re acting in a vacuum.
Look, it didn’t have to be this way. Braun’s script, a Blacklist favorite, at least had a potent premise about government control of women’s bodies. Think what an artful filmmaker like Yorgos Lathimos (“The Lobster,” “Poor Things”) could have made of it. Instead, we have Gluck and Braun buffing clichés to a dull edge. In a contest for copout endings,
“One Night Only” would be hard to beat. Even the beguiling Barbato and Turner can’t fight the fact that Gluck and Braun have doused their very real sparks in a blanket of bland.