Words by JANE CROWTHER
In an alt-theonomic USA premarital sex has been outlawed and singletons are only allowed to copulate (with a mandated condom) for one night a year – their identifying bio tattoo turning green to allow for 12 hours of horndogging. So, The Purge for sex. Those that have sex without authority are imprisoned and well, give this too much thought and it’s a deeply unsettling premise on which to set a rom-com – one which presents more questions than answers. But director Will Gluck (working from a script by Travis Braun) presses on with all the staples of the romantic genre (meet-cute, dash across town, reference to An Affair to Remember etc), two winning leads, numerous cameos and a Haim soundtrack to create a raunchy-com that just about works as long as audiences don’t look under the hood too much.
We arrive in New York as time ticks down to 12 hours of banging just as Owen (Callum Turner) is about to propose to his girlfriend (Maya Hawke) and Allie (Monica Barbaro) finishes work singing Psoriasis jingles. Owen’s first cockblock of the night happens when his girlfriend decides to have sex with their neighbour (Glen Powell) sending him into the street to look for a hook-up. He crosses paths with Allie as she prowls for a partner having been left solo by her wingwoman. Might these two good-looking people be the perfect bedfellows? Not when he barfs his proposal dinner on her shoes and she’s looking for real connection…
As they drift through the city, possible partners (portrayed by a string of cameos) and reasons not to get lucky (lack of condoms, criminal tendencies, Molly Ringwald’s embarrassing Mom) Allie and Owen find themselves repeatedly bumping into each other and learning more about each other. He knows how she takes her coffee, she knows about his pizza parlour, he understands the red lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge that she loves, she gets his need for delayed gratification… all of which become signposted narrative callbacks by the end of the sex countdown, easily anticipated by any viewer with a passing knowledge of rom-coms. But better to lean into that than unpick the gender politics of why everyone constantly tells Owen he is hot (even a NYPD officer), why this is a world where no one protests the mandate or finds a workaround (couldn’t people just screw abroad?) or why there’s a pervading sense of promoting current moral pugnaciousness, heteronormativity and state-controlled reproduction. It’s almost like the film is asking us to consider what it might be like if The Handmaid’s Tale was about Offred just chilling out a bit, putting up with it and having some fun within her sexual suppression.
Turner and Barbaro are charming and effortless, selling the wacky scenarios their characters get into with the charisma of throwback stars of the genre. While their chemistry together may not entirely sizzle, they have more than enough a twinkle in their eyes to carry the picture and make audiences care if they each get their ahem, happy ending. And New York looks dazzling with its postcard views and food stops. You may want pizza by the end credits if not sex…
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Images courtesy of UNIVERSAL PICTURES
One Night Only is in cinemas now