Fuck ONE NIGHT ONLY

Unmarried people can't have sex, unless it's done on one specific, government-approved, Purge-style night. This is how your script gets on the Black List.

Of course, in the confounding, oblivious One Night Only, it is, quite intentionally, never adequately explained how the United States – we are meant to understand that it's taking place only in this country – became an anti-sex zone for unmarried people. At one point a character says, "Thanks, Obama," for the situation, to which another character responds that it all went south about three years ago.

But what year is it now? If the characters live in a universe where Obama exists, then that means someone after him turned it all upside down. If it's 2026, then that means it's Biden's fault. And if not him, then whodunnit? Who cares? Both sides are bad, y'all. It could have happened at any time for any reason because politics, you know? And nobody understands that stuff anyway, so don't bother trying to figure it out. Aren't people crazy?

With limited political information, with no calendar dates given, with only small clues that it might be the near future – we see street advertising promoting something Blade Runner-y called "AI MASSAGE" – the film's premise, known as "The Mandate," isn't meant to trouble anyone. Unmarried people are legally bound to pursue sex on one single night, with surveillance mechanisms in place, but characters played by Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner are destined to fall in love, so ignore the Handmaid's Tale–adjacent religious underpinnings of it all. Don't linger over depressing questions about divorce, abortion, or sexual assault. It's not that deep. The filmmakers keep reminding you it's not that deep. And they are, in this instance, correct. One Night Only is a high-concept romantic comedy with nothing on its mind, a lark, a heterosexual cosplay of queer history. "Wouldn't it be inconvenient if there was a fascist takeover and something oppressive happened to straight people?"

I used the word "fascist" because the film does, too, in the context of a joke that's not a joke. Later in the story, a character states that limiting sex to one night a year gives it an enhanced place of importance, "a new meaning," leading to the punchline, "Maybe the fascists were right about this one." At another point, a character suggests that the goal of finding love is more important than private sexual freedom, because sex without love leaves her feeling empty.

For the record, all of this is ostensibly happening to queer people, as well. Sort of. There's a lesbian babysitter character, sidelined for the night, unconcerned, who states that "Tonight is for the straights," and who then explains to Barbaro's character that queer people have always navigated around laws. On the margins there is queer window dressing, same-sex couples in the background, here and there, shown kissing. Queer presence is a case of half-in, half-out. Don't let the details trouble you. Tonight really is for the straights.

Because the narrative of two attractive people falling in love is presented without friction beyond occasionally funny interruptions, a series of physical gags to prevent them from hooking up until they've proven themselves sufficiently invested in each other, and because its rote familiarity is nothing more than a springboard for Barbaro and Turner to be cute and charming, the only thing to notice about the film is its strange, dogged refusal to let the audience in on why any of this is happening in the first place, what the characters might really think about it, and, in the end, what the film itself wants to say besides, "Shit's wild, am I right?"

There is a suggestion of resistance. Spray-painted slogans ("Fuck the Mandate"). Anti-Mandate rally posters. Occasionally, there's a sprinkling of mildly peeved dialogue about what a drag it all is. But the undeniable subtext is: This Is Fine. Everything else in the world seems relatively routine, after all. In the film's fascist sexual moment, there seem to be no other issues. The economy isn't turning everyone into paupers. The government kidnapping and murdering anyone they feel like doesn't seem to be a problem. Trillionaires with plans for world destruction don't exist. Whoever the president happens to be isn't also conducting lawless, pointless wars, and he certainly isn't a rapist or pedophile. Life is as it has always been except the Fundamentalists won, and it turns out that they were right all along: True Love Waits. Everyone who isn't a real-life target of the real-life U.S. government is meant to leave the theater thinking, "Well, at least it's not that bad!"

Except it is that bad. Just not for you.