MOVIE REVIEW: ONE NIGHT ONLY

 

Two New Yorkers search for love on the one night of the year when sex is legal.

Director: Will Gluck

Cast: Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Maya Hawke, Julia Fox, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Michelle Hurd

Release Date: August 7, 2026

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance

Rated R for sexual material, language and brief nudity.

Runtime: 1h 42m

Review:

One Night Only could have been a fun, mindless rom com propped up by its two stars screen magnetism but framing the whole story in a dystopic, prudish near future makes the whole thing more perplexing than anything.  Will Gluck is familiar with this space, scoring a hit with 2023’s Anyone but You which share quite a few similarities with this film.  His films typically have an easy to watch flow that leans heavily on its stars charisma with Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner bringing plenty of it to this film.   The script offers up plenty of jokes and moments with some landing better than others but overall, it’s a breezy film that offers up a series of misadventures for our central couple to go through before they eventually end up together.  That part is never in question as the film plays out fairly predictably as these lovelorn individuals keep running into other before getting more and more interested in other the course of the night.  Barbaro and Turner are both solid throughout with both bringing a level of weirdness to their generally hot appearances.  They share some solid chemistry together even though the film keeps them apart for large swaths of time which is an odd choice since it makes their “deep” connection feel much less organic than it should by the time it’s all said and done.  It all makes for a fairly standard bit of rom-com silliness that’s entertaining until you think about the concept too much.  The concept offers up a myriad of questions that the film never really seems all that interested in engaging with.  It even wades into some strange acceptance of the whole concept as being romantic and even dropping the line, “Maybe the fascists were right about this one.”  It’s a weird message to end the film on that, for all its sexual romp trappings, seems to land on the government forced chastity side of the argument.  Will Gluck made his name with the Emma Stone vehicle, Easy A, which also dealt with morality, but that film was far more thoughtful in its approach while still working as a comedy, something One Night Only struggles to do. 

C

MOVIE REVIEW: ANYONE BUT YOU

 

Despite an amazing first date, Bea and Ben's initial attraction quickly turns sour. However, when they unexpectedly find themselves at a destination wedding in Australia, they pretend to be the perfect couple to keep up appearances.

Director: Will Gluck

Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Glen Powell, Alexandra Shipp, GaTa, Hadley Robinson, Michelle Hurd, Dermot Mulroney, Darren Barnet, Bryan Brown, Rachel Griffiths

Release Date: December 22, 2023

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Rated R for language throughout, sexual content and brief graphic nudity.

Runtime: 1h 43m

Review:

Anyone but You is a fairly paint by the numbers rom-com that toys with being a raunchier romp before settling into the usual genre clichés that we've seen plenty of times before.  To his credit, Will Gluck delivers a slick looking, breezy film that unabashedly uses Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing as its basic template while occasionally lifting full lines of dialogue from the play.   It’s an interesting choice that never works since those moments are played off as a running joke with the characters stating they just made up the rather robust bit of dialogue lifted from the Bard.  It would have been an interesting approach if they'd leaned into it instead of just sporadically shoehorning it randomly with little pretext or payoff.  The film does something similar with its random forays into raunchy territory while never committing to it.  Paired with the random Shakespearean lines, the film never finds its own flow or rhythm since everything in between is overly familiar and broad.  Gluck has proven capable of making a memorable genre film like Emma Stone's Easy A but this film relies far too heavily on tired tropes.  It’s a shame since the cast seems up for pretty much anything especially the overly attractive onscreen couple.  Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell are clearly having fun with the material which makes the film an easy watch even if decidedly forgettable.  Sweeney and Powell have solid chemistry, but you never buy the fact that the characters supposedly have a certain level of disdain for each other which makes it readily apparent they'll end up together.  The supporting cast is made up of familiar faces like Dermot Mulroney, Rachel Griffiths, Michelle Hurd and Bryan Brown but the film doesn't take advantage of the talent instead being mostly satisfied with them delivering broad strokes of comedy.  It all leaves Anyone but You as a passable but forgettable rom-com that could have been far more memorable.

C