What if Congress decreed a mandate that pre-marital sex was only allowed once a year?
The idea might just past muster as political satire, the law being a right-wing attempt to instil old-school morals on a liberal society (the film is set in New York) by imposing Saudi-like laws on the country.
A TV pundit declares that to be an incel is now a badge of honour. Every unmarried person has “bio sensors” on their wrists that turn green on the evening sexual freedom arrives.
Yet this is rom-com and under Will Gluck’s almost inept direction what little chemistry is generated by Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro is washed away by a riptide of absurdity. Turner’s Owen runs a pizzeria and Barbaro’s Allie earns a living as a session singer belting out jingles for intimate products, none of which are as good the earworm from the Bodyform ads of the 1980s.
As the countdown to the mandate approaches, sex fever descends on the streets of New York. Lots of very attractive people collide into clinches. Chat-up is kept to a minimum. An uncanny Woody Allen lookalike attempts to seduce Allie with card tricks.
Gluck thinks he is directing a love letter to romance. But Travis Braun’s script is a tick box of unlikely situations as his plot finds increasingly outlandish ways to bring the separate lives of the two romantics together.
Meanwhile, the talent of Barbaro and Turner is as wasted as champagne on a Formula 1 podium.
One Night Only
Cert 15
To get more from Life, click here to sign up for our free Life newsletter.