A romantic comedy set in a dystopian world with a particularly strict law has given moviegoers a lot to talk about.


Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro in One Night Only. (Nicole Rivelli/Universal Pictures/Everett Collection)

You know how The Purge is a horror movie franchise set in a dystopian hellscape in which crime is legal for 12 hours once a year? Well, imagine that, but instead of all crime, you're only allowed to have sex outside of marriage once a year. That's the preposterous plot of the new romantic comedy, One Night Only that's finally out after being the subject of endless speculation, memes and jokes since the trailer first dropped.

Allie (Monica Barbaro) and Owen (Callum Turner) play, respectively, a pharmaceutical jingle singer (a great running bit) and a pizza shop owner, who, for varying reasons, are hunting for a human connection (literally) on the least romantic night of the year. The bizarre rules of the "mandate" in their fictional world keep getting in their way, tearing them apart, then bringing them back together, with scenes of kooky, horny desperation unfolding in the background.

It's the most fascinating premise for a movie that I've seen since the beach that makes you old. Like The Drama earlier this year, a huge part of the marketing of this film is the promise of a big reveal — and the opportunity to judge whether you think it pays off. I liked the movie, but what I enjoyed even more was online commenters posing their cheeky questions and putting forward their most unhinged theories about this puritanical, Handmaid's Tale-adjacent alternate reality.

Many of these burning questions are answered in the film (or by the movie's director in interviews, though he'd really prefer you ask the questions to your friends in the theater), but if you prefer spoilers to the real thing — and I learned recently that many of you sickos do — read on.

Warning — big spoilers ahead

So here it is: The rules of the sex purge are introduced in the film's first scene and further developed throughout. Congress passed legislation at the federal level three years before the movie begins which requires singles to be branded with a "biosensor" that detects when they have sex. If they're in violation of the rules, an alert goes to local authorities, who hate having to enforce the law. The unmarried are allowed to choose the shape of the tattoo-esque marking on their wrists, and it lights up green when copulation is allowed, and red when it's not. Breaking this law is not a major crime, but you can go to jail, especially if you are a repeat offender. Condoms are mandatory. It's not a holiday, but it's polite for married folks to give their single coworkers the night off. It's also stated that LGBTQ people have found ways to skirt detection.

In the film, many of the core characters have signs calling for a repeal of the mandate in their workplaces and homes. Anti-mandate activism is discussed. A character who questions if fascists might be right about sexual purity is immediately, cartoonishly met with his downfall.

Some critics see the failure to fight back against the regime that banned premarital sex in the movie as a failure to responsibly comment on purity culture or fascism. I get that. Even The Purge, the original take on the idea of one lawless night, had something to say about class inequality, immigration and good vs. evil. This is really just a romantic comedy with an assumed dystopian setting, more like the murder-is-OK-for-some-reason backdrop of Bottoms than the revolution-first narratives of The Hunger Games or The Handmaid's Tale.

In an interview with The New York Times, Barbaro says the movie has political undertones, but it's really an allegory about dating. "You can be living with a government you don't agree with, but at the end of the day you still just want to find love, and maybe it means having to exist alongside a lot of discomfort and hardship," she says.

Turner, on the other hand, didn't find the movie he co-stars in political at all. "For me, I never paid attention to that. What I really liked, actually, was that it's not a dystopian future. It's a New York that we recognize just with a slight twist."

The biggest problem people have been having is that … well, for a movie about a sex purge, there's not really any sex. There's plenty of making out, and sex is almost constantly discussed, but we don't see anybody get down and dirty. It's a dream come true for the pearl-clutching, anti-cinematic sex crowd, but does its ultimate subversion of the expectation of sex imply that sex is actually bad somehow?

Most movies are about how the quest for romance can sometimes end in sex; this one is just about how the quest for sex can end in romance. But romance was always going to be at the center of the story because, fundamentally, this is a romantic comedy!

One Night Only director Will Gluck is also responsible for Anyone but You, an unexpected box office hit that had audiences clamoring for more romantic comedies on the big screen. We haven't seen many — most of the romance that audiences so deeply desire is relegated to streaming services, where the tropes feel like manufactured algorithmic slop, regurgitated from familiar films and intended to hit the widest possible audience. Hate it or love it, One Night Only at least feels new.

Early signs seem to indicate the originality is paying off — and even attracting the hopeless romantics among us. AMC hosted a singles-only screening at several locations during the film's release weekend, and it sold out at several locations.

Mark, one of the attendees, says his New York City theater had great energy. By his estimation, the audience was approximately 40% women, 40% men and 20% couples. He and his friend handed out fliers with fun facts and information themselves, which he says were well received, though he admits, "it didn't seem like people came to play as much as I thought."

Nathalie, another attendee in Los Angeles, said her showing was, sadly, fruitless. She thinks she and her friend were the only women in the audience, and though two men kept moving their seats to try to talk to them, nothing ever came of it. Maybe if the stakes had been higher — say, it was the only night of the year during which this was legal — all parties could have made a connection.

I think it's beautiful that people pause to hunt for love despite whatever they have going on, be that combating regressive laws or trying to find a movie other than Spider-Man: Brand New Day to see on a summer Thursday.

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Posted by Temmy
Mon, August 10, 2026 10:21am