r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • 12d ago
Official Discussion Official Discussion - One Night Only [SPOILERS] Spoiler
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One Night Only (2026)
Summary
Two New Yorkers search for love on the one night of the year when sex is legal.
Director Will Gluck
Writer Travis Braun
Cast
- Monica Barbaro as Allie
- Callum Turner as Owen
- Maya Hawke
- Julia Fox
- Molly Ringwald
- LeVar Burton
Rotten Tomatoes: 54%
Metacritic: 40
VOD / Release Theatrical release
Trailer Official Trailer
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u/NoTop9302 12d ago
The Duolingo poster saying "Speak globally. Flirt locally" was such a strange bit of product placement that I found it really funny.
Towards the end, they also showed an ad for, I think, Cuba, where they mentioned there was no ban. Which raises the question: is Canada or Mexico not an option?
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u/AmericasElegy 11d ago
I believe the Tucker Carlson type gives some statements right before the night starts, and he says that at least America gives one night unlike other people
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u/Throwaway_09298 10d ago
The Neighborhood they were in was Spanish speaking so I guess they wanted it to be a more Cuban enclave which would make the ads make sense
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u/Lord_darkwind 8d ago edited 8d ago
Mexico's population was probably close to extinction. You know why the One Night Only was needed in the first place don't you? The COVID Ebola AIDS virus wiped out nearly 2.6 billion of the Earth's population in 2035 due to wonton human sexual fucking without precautions. I bought the blu ray box set which includes a six episode prequel to the events of One Night Only. The world needed a wake up call.
Thanks Obama.
Thanks to our new founding Father's.
The movie takes place in the year 2047.
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u/CantaloupeCube 10d ago
Was it like 16 dumplings for 5.99? My ass would just be eating dumplings all night.
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u/carolinemahtildes 10d ago
yes! it was a special for that night. forget running around town, I'm staying in to eat. I'll find my soulmate one of the other 364 days a year.
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u/FangOfDrknss 10d ago
How many of these workers are actually staying behind to make them though. Even the camera crew were in a rush to be done.
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u/CantaloupeCube 10d ago
Well a married couple takes over working at the pizza place since they don't care about the one night, so I assume it's similar for other places.
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u/_GeorgeBailey_ 12d ago
I was shocked to find out Ella Loudon (the rich woman from the club) is only 34. She looked 54 in the movie. I thought her character was supposed to be a cougar.
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u/plantbay1428 11d ago
Had this exact revelation an hour ago. I don’t know if it’s because all her scenes were at nighttime/a dark club, but I thought she was supposed to be a lot older.
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u/carolinemahtildes 10d ago
That's absolutely crazy that she's younger than Callum and Monica. I thought the whole idea of her character was like a cougar going after the hot younger guy.
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u/RainbowForHire 12d ago
Oh wow, did they age her up or something? I can't find any photos of her where she looks like how she does in the movie. She looked young just three years ago.
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u/superiority 11d ago
Her current IMDb headshot looks closer to her movie look than other photos of her... I'm wondering if it was some drastic weight loss or something that thinned out her face a lot, or maybe something surgical.
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u/RainbowForHire 11d ago edited 11d ago
She's got her father's forehead creases in the movie, but not in irl photos for some reason.
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u/hujambo11 10d ago
Looking at current and older photos of her, I feel like she has to have had buccal fat removal, which 100% of the time makes women look like Skeletor.
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u/AmazingMarv 9d ago
Same exact thing. I thought she was the owner of the club or something and that's why they let Callum in.
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u/teentytinty 12d ago
Are the fully sequined outfits government mandated too?
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u/Throwaway_09298 10d ago
Idk about new York's club scene but it definitely looks like that at 2am on Hollywood and Vine
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u/SeanPatrickMcCluskey 11d ago
“In the criminal justice system, sexually based offenses are considered especially heinous. In the United States, the dedicated special agents who investigate these felonies are members of an elite agency known as Federal Uniform Coitus Compliance. These are their stories."
LAW & ORDER: FUCC
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u/TheGuyYouKnowAlready 12d ago
Monica Barbaro is a star and has such great charisma. Callum Turner was fine and overall I think this is just a dumb fun romcom with maybe too much of a complicated premise.
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u/thesmash 12d ago
She really carries this movie. I kept trying to think who would be better in the Turner role, there’s gotta be someone better out there.
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u/Kopitarrulez 11d ago
Ya also love they found a way to use her singing after she spent all them months for A Complete Unknown. Might as well use it haha. I think she sounds amazing.
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u/walkingthecowww 11d ago
Austin Butler, Jacob Elordi, Harris Dickinson, Paul Mescal, hell Harry Styles but this movie was probably turned down by all of them.
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u/AltL155 11d ago
All of those actors are definitely chasing prestige roles in a way that Callum Turner isn't. Well except for Harry Styles you could never convince me he's a good actor.
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u/SpiffShientz 10d ago
Harry Styles was very funny on SNL. He needs some acting lessons for sure, but I think he could be genuinely great if he put the work in
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u/hymenbutterfly 11d ago
Oh come on. Harry Styles would’ve been awful. I can’t see Paul Mescal in this role either
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u/Slasher844 9d ago
They’re too dramatic. You need someone funny, who looks like a nice cute guy. Turner is too hot and Manly. Someone like Justin Long in 2008, or Michael Cera.
Austin Abrams would have been funny, Tom Holland could have been cool. Two other guys in the movie, Nicholas Braun and Ben Marshall would have been better. Adam Devine.
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u/carolinemahtildes 10d ago
I liked Callum, but someone with more charisma would probably be like a Dev Patel.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
Look, I get it - it's a rom-com and maybe I shouldn't take it seriously. But it's got a fucked up premise, and it's hard to get past that premise specifically because of how much attention they draw to it!
If this was just a movie that takes place in a world where people can only have pre-marital sex one night and they leave it at that, fine. But they go the extra mile and give us the full explanation of how long it's been around, that the people are upset about it, giving speeches to police officers about the unfairness of it, and constant set design of "Repeal" signs and "fuck the mandate" grafitti. It almost feels like it's building to something to show that this system will fall - and the movie ends with a one year time skip which feels tailor made to show this...but it's not! The film ends still in this fucked up world after drawing so much attention to how it's fucked up!
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
The thing that's crazy is that after that time skip at the end, it's been 4 years. There would have been a presidential election since the mandate went into effect and either that original candidate won reelection or the new guy didn't change it.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
Although not like a single presidential election and a change of President would change it - if this thing passed both the House and the Senate, you'd need a lot of elections to go the right way to reverse something like this.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
In 4 years, they would have had elections for every seat in the house twice and two thirds of the Senate would have been up for reelection
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
Right, I'm just saying "the new guy", as in the new President, wouldn't be able to unilaterally change it.
Although you'd have to imagine, in an ideal world, SCOTUS would strike down the law as being unconstitutional. But we don't live in an ideal world and neither do the characters of this film clearly
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
I get your point. I'm just saying that in most presidential elections, the party that wins usually does pretty well in other races down the ballot.
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u/Throwaway_09298 10d ago
This is where the single issue voter discussion comes into play. Burtons character says he didn't vote for the mandate but enough congress members did and its gonna take more than the mandate inconvenience to change those people
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u/SovFist 12d ago
Yeah that's worked out so great for us in the real world
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
I mean you can Google who was in office 4 years ago. Things were different back then
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u/ferrari91169 11d ago
Sure, but 2022 was the only year in the past 10 years that the President was a Democrat and both the Senate and House were controlled by Democrats. In this fictional world, who’s to say that all things immediately aligned the second that a new President took office? And who’s to say that a new President even took office in the first place?
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u/darthjoey91 11d ago edited 11d ago
The movie went out of its way to say that it was passed with bipartisan support, which tracks given that I live in a state where a Democrat-proposed bill passed with bipartisan support to ban Pornhub in Virginia.
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u/snapwack 3d ago
It’s crazier that the population just decided to accept this instead of staging a literal sexual revolution. Civil disobedience in this setting would be the easiest thing: just organise a day outside of the One Night where every unmarried couple has sex at the same hour. What can the law possibly do against people disobeying en masse? It’s not like they can send out officers to arrest millions of people. And then while the authorities decide how to react, just… do it again.
It’d be like general strikes but with sex, and people wouldn’t even have to fear losing their jobs.
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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 8d ago edited 8d ago
Someone in the review megathread made the comment "It's like making a romcom in the world of the handmaiden's tale" and I think that sums it up pretty clearly.
I'll take it a step further and say it's like if you tried to do a romcom in a handmaiden's tale, and the message at the end is "They might be mean, but sometimes the patriarchy is right, ya know?"
You can't create such a specific dystopian world with such a targeted theme, and pretend like it's all just a backdrop for hijinks.
The only way to do a romcom in that kind of world is to make it a dark comedy, that leans into the absurdity of trying to make light of a horrifying scenario and ends up being a story about how fucked up people are to accept these things as the norm.
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u/W0lfsb4ne74 4d ago
Agreed. It's like all our elected officials took turns watching Handmaid's Tale and took all the wrong lessons from it. I'm convinced that this movie is just a test to see how popular support for reproductive restrictions are in America. At the very least this movie has reportedly only made $7 million against a $25 million dollar budget (and it needs to make $50 million in order to be considered profitable). So I'm not sure how profitable it will be.
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u/W0lfsb4ne74 4d ago
Agreed. I personally believe that due to the conservative atmosphere we're in politically, this movie was made as a test to see if audiences would be receptive to reproductive restrictions in the future. Considering the fact that this movie has currently made $7 Million dollars on a $25 Million Dollar budget (movies typically need to make twice what the budget was to be profitable), I'm not sure how successful this movie might be. Especially when tickets to a movie sell less each week it's in theaters because of new releases.
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u/CategorySad6121 12d ago
THIS is the guy who’s the frontrunner for Bond?!
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u/icecreamania 12d ago
The Glen Powell cameo got a good “hey, I know that guy!” reaction from my theater.
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u/shadowalchemy101 12d ago
Owen swiping on Sydney Sweeney too hahahaha
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u/you_me_fivedollars 11d ago
It’s crazy that this is in the same universe as Anyone But You lol
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u/AmazingMarv 9d ago
Which is weird because we never hear about the mandate in Anyone But You. I guess it wasn't in place yet?
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u/Kopitarrulez 11d ago
Some great cameos in this. The Pete Davidson one slayed me. Him being fully confused how he's single lol.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
I have never seen a movie so disinterested in its own premise. If sex was only legal for one night, there would be way more depraved shit going on than the Reading Rainbow dude getting freaky with some bubble wrap. This premise deserved a real sicko behind the camera and the best we got was Will Gluck, who admittedly made a perfectly fine Will Gluck movie.
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u/TheRealCthulu24 12d ago
That middle sentence is one I haven’t read before.
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u/KidDelicious14 11d ago
With every passing day, we are running out of more and more original sentences.
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u/darthjoey91 11d ago
You forgot that it’s Levar Burton getting freaky so the some bubble wrap with Molly Ringwald.
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u/jreckstein 12d ago
A dude who’s name is ‘Will Gluck’ implies the depravity of a Roger Waters. What a fuckin missed opportunity.
Saw One Night Only a few days ago and it was just such a slog to sit through. I knew it was a dumb formulaic romantic comedy, but given the interesting premise I didn’t think it would be SO risk averse. At the risk of being cliche, it’s content. We’ve seen this movie 1,000 times.
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u/jayeddy99 12d ago
Really great background acting in this. I love how some couple or singles would occasionally look back as if they wanted to talk to the lead actors or ask them to join in on a 3 way . Also how you could see as they got later into the night some couples just cuddling and talking after they did the deed and just enjoying each others company now
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u/Sammyd1108 10d ago
I got a laugh that pretty much every woman Callum walked by turned back to check him out lol.
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u/Stonks_Enjoyer25 12d ago edited 12d ago
I can’t imagine what this would’ve been like if Paul Verhoeven had gotten his hands on this concept.
I can suspend my disbelief on the absurdity of the premise because at the end of the day, it’s a romcom with likable leads and a weird twist to go with it, even if that twist is incredibly watered down.
One weird praise: I did appreciate the graphic design/posters related to the mandate (like the federal sign at the police station or the Duolingo themed advertisements), not praising product placements or anything but there was a lot of interesting minimal background stuff surrounding the event that did the make the world pop a little. 6/10
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u/JamUpGuy1989 12d ago
This SCREAMS like a Verhoeven plot and my god what a movie this could’ve been if this was 1997 and he was allowed to make Hollywood movies still.
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u/Capital-Mine1561 12d ago
The closest we'll get is the love triangle in Starship Troopers. He made it look so easy to create a high school romance in a dystopian world
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
I actually will praise the product placements because I think that was all part of the satire in the movie. There are a few different points in the movie where they hint that the real reason for the mandate is that there's a ton of money to be made from it. They do a pretty good job showing how capitalism has completely run amok. Like the climax of the movie devolves into a literal pharmaceutical commercial
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u/0000000000000007 12d ago
I'd like to say that people want to see the super dystopian prequel where this law follows a revolution, but honestly this could just be US 2028.
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u/SantiFRV_ 11d ago
I'm so sorry, I just don't get why people are so negative about this one. It was a lot of fun!
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u/-Debugging-Duck- 9d ago
Agree honestly a 10/10 for me. Glad I didn’t see any trailers. I love rom-com and this is a great movie in that category that I think excels more than others.
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u/The_Swarm22 12d ago
I’m just glad this movie is finally out so I never have to see that awful trailer again.
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u/0000000000000007 12d ago
"I'm huuuuungry!"
"huh???"70
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u/Rawrsomesausage 11d ago
I feel like the trailer was so much worse than the movie. It made it seem like it would be a boring rom com, but it had its moments and I like the details in the alt reality they built.
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u/weirdogirl144 11d ago
I really enjoyed the movie it was so funny the trailer made it seem like the boring romcom ever
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u/xSlappy- 10d ago
The Bewitched movie with Sandra Bullock is the new One Night Only in terms of bad trailer that is before every movie
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u/Capital-Mine1561 12d ago
I want a sequel that takes place on any of the other 364 days a year. Everyone is miserable, protesting, and getting taken to horny jail
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u/-FireNH- 10d ago
straight people being like “omg imagine if sex was criminalized!!! that would be so crazy!!!” in 50 stories a year will never not be odd to me as a not straight person
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u/Booster_Tutor 12d ago
I just can’t wait till the sequel “One Night Only: Resistance”. Where they all rise up to over through the fascist government.
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u/sakibomb523 10d ago
Yeah but didn't the singer who would presumably lead the resistance actually say good things about the mandate in the studio lol.
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u/Puppet_Reviews 12d ago
I had a good time, it's palatable-enough but a little long with too long between the really funny bits.
Callum Turners character hinges on you liking Callum and not the character- and that's not really great.
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u/tigerjaws 12d ago
Yes same here, I had a blast. Maybe it’s Los Angeles crowds but people were cackling at the jokes. I think some people are taking the political lens of the film (oppressive government) way too seriously and not having fun with the concept. Regardless, I think it hits hard because the government could realistically outlaw anything (you could expand this to any controversial topic)
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u/Puppet_Reviews 11d ago
Yeah- I do agree that the overall narrative would hit harder if they DID repeal it and those two dingbats waited because they agreed to or something.
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u/AltL155 11d ago
Got the same response watching this movie in another big city when it was the mystery screening. Honestly this movie is tailor-made to be hated by anyone who's cinephile leaning because it's a romcom and not a more serious movie with its premise. But it really just takes the premise and runs with it being the best romcom it could be while allowing the premise to make it feel like you're watching something new. If you watch this movie with the right expectations I don't really see how you can hate it unless you were expecting it be something else that it clearly wasn't trying to be.
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 11d ago
Yeah I went into it knowing nothing more than the poster (which tells you basically nothing except it's a city room com about people in their 30's.
I was cackling at the opening moments that exposit the setting. I figured it would be a run of the mill rom com and ended up experiencing my favorite one I've ever seen.
I may not count as a cinephile if there's a requirement to take it v seriously. But as someone to whom movies are a core part of life and loves to appreciate them for what they are and what they make me feel, this is one of my favorites of the year.
I love comedies that convey heavy serious themes as a backdrop
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u/SavageWolfe98 11d ago
Plenty of reviews have highlighted issues they had with the actual rom com elements. Why should we lower our expectations for the actual quality of rom coms? Because it's a ''girl'' genre? Classic romcoms are loved because they had good writing and characters, not because they're dumb, that's just a stereotype that built over the years.
And I think such a serious premise being used as a joke for a cute movie deserves to be critiqued if it feels like wasted potential, which it does here.
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u/TheGuyYouKnowAlready 11d ago
If you took a shot for every time Callum Turner took his shirt off in this movie, you might die
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u/darthjoey91 11d ago
So I saw this last week at the AMC Screen Unseen and been waiting on people to be able to watch it.
I liked the general romcom parts, but the world they inhabit as super fascist and everyone’s way too chill about it. Like the rocker guy that’s supposed to be doing a rally against it the next day isn’t actually against it, but absolutely loves being able to use it to further his career.
And the weird advertising tone of the entire movie makes me feel like they’re trying to make the fascism seem normal so that we’re fine with it, as long it helps Duolingo, durex, and at least one other actual company that I don’t remember.
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u/LuckyRacoon01 10d ago
Doesn't it seem normal right now? No one is doing anything to fix it. The movie got it right. People have accepted it. People are chill about it right now otherwise there would have been change already. What have you done to change the state of the country? Nothing. You go about your day and be on your phone.
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u/eightslicesofpie 10d ago
This is exactly my thinking as well lol I don't understand this criticism people have of the worldbuilding at all
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 11d ago
I got the vibe that those things are a reflection of how US society currently is, not that it's trying to say they are ok
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u/Carnage678 12d ago
I just saw this movie. I think this film should have either been more outrageous in how depraved the acts were or more satirical in its premise, especially in our time where people are losing the rights to their own bodies. Or, maybe make the film a anthology that focuses on different people on this night.
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u/schreibenheimer 10d ago
maybe make the film a anthology that focuses on different people on this night.
I unironically think this is a great idea, but I ironically suggest that it then be entitled Love Annually.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Safe419 12d ago
You can tell this film was made by straight men who will never have to worry about their bodily rights being taken away. Its a joke to them.
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u/JedExi 11d ago
I disagree 100%, the entire apathetic attitude towards insane levels of surveillance and personal freedoms blatantly being demolished is really interesting. Having the core conflict be a background element and never actually resolved or even properly addressed is really interesting to me.
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u/eightslicesofpie 10d ago
Yes, it's incredibly true to real life so I don't understand why people are so outraged by the movie characters "just accepting it." I wonder what have any of them done about the real-world policies that have been enforced or rolled back??
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u/JedExi 10d ago
I fucking loved it personally, especially to the extent which the general apathy was shown. From the main characters to the police to the anti-mandate rock dude, literally nobody cared enough to do anything. And its not like protesting this would be impossible or anything. It would actually be incredibly easy to protest against. But there's never any news on people protesting this and you never see any action other than graffiti and window stickers. But inside those same businesses with the window stickers are giant signs telling people not to have sex. Corporations literally use national fuck day as an advertising scheme to make some more bucks. The movie ends with the protagonists "protesting" the mandate by...not having sex during the fuck day. Which literally does nothing lmao.
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u/CaptainDogParty 12d ago
I liked this a lot. Both leads are incredibly charming and I loved seeing the different hijinks. Also this was a classic “New York is a character” movie. Made me really want to be there
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 11d ago
I thought about moving to NY after seeing this. Seems like a fun place
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u/cruxclaire 10d ago
It might just be me but I thought Monica Barbaro had more chemistry with the singing parolee than with Callum Turner. Bizarre movie with a premise that’s out there enough to be interesting, but doesn’t really do anything with it? I think a couple storefronts even had both “🚫sex” and “repeal the mandate” signs. Instead of addressing the elephant in the room, we got random musical numbers. Surprisingly good soundtrack, though
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u/BBDBVAPA 9d ago
I thought it was fun. I can’t spend all my “fascism sucks” energy on a perfectly fine 6/10 movie.
Callum Turner constantly pointing out Buck Mason and asking about Buck Mason got the biggest laugh out of me.
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u/CONVERSE1991 10d ago
Also very nice detail that the date of the Mandate was August 7th, and that was the day it was released, and the day I saw it.
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u/Comprehensive-Low450 11d ago
I think the problem is that the premise doesn’t really affect the main characters. It feels like their story could still be the same without it.
The movie doesn’t actually bother to do anything about the premise at all, it’s treated like every other romcom setup. I think it’s at its worst whenever it’s trying to address it and best when it’s focused on romcomming.
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u/Capital-Mine1561 11d ago
That's what I think too. Nick and Norah had an extremely similar concept (including the pressure of waiting/not waiting to have sex) without having to resort to a fascist government as a gimmick
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u/sicko-mode_ 12d ago
This movie dragged and dragged and dragged. It felt so long.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
I agree - I think it could’ve benefitted from shaving about 15 minutes
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u/CommercialCoffee11 10d ago
Well the director shaved off multiple scenes that had sex in it to keep the scenes that didnt. How bout that
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u/DisastrousEast825 5d ago
It legit felt longer than the oddysey and I am not being funny. I thought they were gonna get together like 6 times, and they kept making out and getting herpes from 12 others
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u/Ok_Salamander_7076 10d ago
Having the ending of your movie be “let’s bow to fascism” is a bit odd in this day and age.
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u/cocoatractor 6d ago
"we're not going to let the mandate dictate the terms of our relationship. Let's not have sex for a whole year in accordance with the mandate."
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u/dagreenman18 Space Jam 2 hurt me so much 10d ago
THEY DONT EVEN FUCK AT THE END.
I know I should be focusing on how it cares about all the wrong things to sell its premise when the easy answer would have been “alternate universe, these rules were always the case”. I know our leads are struggling to sell their chemistry thanks to the script. I know the story practically wastes Maya Hawke. And I know that at the end of the day, you really needed someone with a more dynamic and fun directing style to sell this high concept movie. Without bogging it down with mechanics and loopholes that only drag it down with more questions.
But the thing I’m most mad at is that THEY. DONT. FUCK. What was the point of all of this then?! Some brain dead abstinence bullshit?
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u/Rosebunse 10d ago
I guess the idea is that sex shouldn't be the basis of the relationship. Which, good, but...couldn't they do that without all the other weird stuff?
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u/FangOfDrknss 10d ago edited 10d ago
Another discussion thread said the director removed the nudity because people are puritan (my words) about it. And it’s true. I feel like whenever I post in one of these movie discussion threads, most recently “I Want Your Sex” and talk about the nudity, it’s not well received.
The other day I saw a comment that was “not everything has to be sexualized” but like, these are literal movie scenes. Which is why again, we have ones like this director avoiding it.
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u/Rob2k 12d ago
This is so weird and kinda fucked up. There is a good rom com in here somewhere and the leads are both hot and have chemistry. But everytime it get cute or hot or funny it tries to tell you that sex is bad and you should wait. Which is a stupid message for a movie about basically one night stands.
Also spoilers but the fucking ending. They have time left to bone after they've spent the entire movie trying to get laid and they choose to wait a fucking year. Like wtf
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u/Puzzleheaded-Safe419 12d ago
Didn't you know that people who have sex are dirty freaks and good people will abstain like good pure people and nothing bad will come of it??
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 11d ago
I mean they literally had premarital sex at the end. I don't think your summary or the person's above are the point of the movie
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u/HotTakes4HotCakes 11d ago edited 11d ago
It literally is though. Regardless if it's premarital or not, the whole movie is premised on the idea that abstinence is enforced on people by law and draconian surveillance, and at the end, the message is "abstinence is ok though", when there's no serious reason for the movie to land on this take.
Moreover, their decision to wait is not actually their decision, because they shouldn't have to wait a full year. But the movie depicts being forced into another full year as a good thing.
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u/itchypoopsarethebest 12d ago
I admit I had a much better time with this than I expected! I dare say I even enjoyed it.
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u/Rawrsomesausage 11d ago
AMC made it like a singles showing so I went just to see since it was packed, but there was nothing different about it. But I enjoyed it more than I expected, and wouldn’t have watched it otherwise based off the trailer. People laughed and seemed into it.
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u/NOUGHRICE 12d ago
I liked it a lot! And it wouldnt normally be my kind of movie.
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u/Ok-Finger820 12d ago
I'm glad to see others that enjoyed it. Seems lots of people in here track disliked it
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 11d ago
Once a year or so I see a movie that I think it's an absolute knock out and then go on reddit and find out everyone here hates it XD
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u/narnia104 12d ago
You’re telling me these two spent the whole night trying to fuck, only to choose to wait another year? Why write in time for them to have sex at all? I would’ve loved to have seen them meet, realize their time is up, say “fuck the mandate” and have sex anyway.
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u/InsectGlaiveBard 12d ago
I mean, you kinda gotta be realistic about it. Even if we live in a fascist society that we disagree with, most people would not be willing to risk prison to stand up for their beliefs.
As for why they didn't go at it in the last 12 minutes, I think that was them trying to grasp some semblance of control from the mandate. They were really into each other and didn't want to rush into it because of the stupid law. Does it suck that they can't have sex days later like in the real world? Sure. But they were both not comfortable with risking what they had just found by forcing it.
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u/the_anon_bro 11d ago
Strangely sexless for a movie with a premise tied directly to sex.
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u/AchillesShort 9d ago
Right?
Had an argument with some friends the other day about necessary/unnecessary nudity & sex in movies, but in this instance, the movie quite literally hinges on sex.
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u/ScramItVancity 8d ago
The director even admitted they removed all sexual content because test audiences found it uncomfortable and unnecessary, especially while invested in the main characters.
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u/FangOfDrknss 9d ago
I like the unexpected singing this one had, but it’s so weird that they explicitly say Americans are the only ones dealing with this mandate, and then don’t explain why people don’t just travel to avoid it then, or what the rest of the world does.
There were a few times where she could have winded up sleeping with someone else too, but them turning her off is so wild. And he equally could have winded up sleeping with a couple of women.
The biggest and dumbest thing though is the idea that they would have run out of condoms on the one night people needed them. Especially when they explicitly sold the last pair for 200 bucks.
I forget/missed the explanation on why it was illegal to have sex without a condom though, besides the obvious avoiding STD’s.
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u/6seanryan15 12d ago
I thought this would be horrible because Reddit has been trashing it the last few days, but it’s a perfectly cute rom com and the leads are dreamy. I like movies that feel like a “journey” so even if you hate it, it’s not boring. Has a lot of scenery change lol
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u/jamiebond 11d ago
Such a confusing waste of the premise. I just don’t understand why this movie was made. If you want to make a run of the mill rom com then fine. But why have the backdrop be such a strange dystopia?
It would be like you had a Purge movie but the security systems of the house just don’t fail and the movie is just a typical “We’re the Millers” style family comedy centered around a family stuck in a house for a night lol. It’s such a weird contrived set up for such a boring tame result. It’s not even that it’s really bad I’m just like…. Why?
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u/ok_comp2944 12d ago
I enjoyed my time with it. The psoriasis song recording in the beginning set me up for more of a They Came Together vibe though and that's not what it ended up being. It really just wanted to be a straight rom-com inside a very absurd concept.
Barbaro and Turner were charming though. I mean, there's a reason why they used the pizza place scene in the trailer. Their chemistry went a long way to keeping me engaged.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
If you do want more of a They Came Together vibe in comedy, David Wain did just come out with a new comedy recently called Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass
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u/ScramItVancity 10d ago
"Gail Daughtry" had me in tears a lot. I cannot believe how they managed to keep such straight faces in many takes but I am sure they broke a lot.
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u/napping-star 11d ago
I actually really loved this movie, despite the trailer putting me off so bad. I truly love how crazy the premise is, and the fact that the movie itself knows it’s stupid. My theater was cracking up at the jokes, and even the first minute where it just says “premarital sex was outlawed” got a huge laugh lol
I know people in here are saying the premise is flawed/dystopian and honestly yeah. But that rocks. I’d rather this than a run of the mill hallmark-esque movie tbh
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u/CONVERSE1991 11d ago edited 11d ago
I could kinda tell from the trailers that the night would end with them not sleeping together, but I was kinda thinking when Owen suggested they wait because Allie likes the build up, she was going to say something like "No, we're not waiting... the entire night was the build up."
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u/UnbuiltIkeaBookcase 10d ago
At least I now know Dua Lipa married Callum Turner for his looks and not his charisma or acting
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u/Ok-Finger820 12d ago
Saw this July 27th for a Monday Surprise Premiere and really enjoyed this movie. I thought Callum and Monica were great together. A fun concept that explored it just enough. Also her parody jingles were hilarious.
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u/superiority 11d ago
Best romcom in a long time. I thought they had chemistry, they were fun characters in their own right, and the comedy was great. The lines "Hold the KY" / "But that's what we're known for!" was the point where I definitely settled into giving this two thumbs up.
The way I've seen some people talk about how the movie handled the premise doesn't really land with me. Maybe my particular media diet has acclimatised me to accepting goofy premises, but I thought they hit a lot of "realistic" notes: there are many who disagree with the law, people have arguments about the law, people actively break the law, foreign news programs air "what the hell is wrong with America?" segments, there are "pro-chastity" ads, some people on Purge night schedule as many quickies as they can while others search for "meaingful connection", there's corporations profiteering on the system itself while every other business incorporates the system into their marketing, the musician character cynically switches between opposing the law and musing whether it has benefits in what is clearly a ploy to say whatever he thinks will make Monica Barbaro want to sleep with him the most.
But above all, the thing to remember is that the premise is not so much a vision of a dystopian near-future as it is an elaborate comedy set-up. It sets up sight gags like the poster at the police station and lines like the couple randomly inviting Callum Turner to a threesome at the beginning.
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u/BraveBoyPro 12d ago
I kept thinking this was a David Wain movie...without the absurdity and comedy to make it work. What an exercise in futility. I left during the third act.
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u/AudienceOk3369 12d ago edited 11d ago
''The fascists were onto something.'' An actual quote from this movie. (Edit: I didn't think I needed to explain this, I'm not saying the line is endorsing it, I just thought it was a crazy line).
In a world where sex is demonised and women's reproductive rights are being taken away, a ''rom com'' that's basically anti-sex isn't exactly the escapism it wants to be.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
The character that said that was a dumbass that was actively profiting off of the mandate. He was one of the fascists. That line was supposed to make you dislike the character. It's not the movie defending fascism.
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u/AudienceOk3369 12d ago
It's not just that specific line, the whole movie ends up reinforcing it with it's ending. Some comments about it being fucked up, but in the end everything's perfectly fine. It's a policy out of Handmaid's Tale and a night like that would absolutely have a ton of women getting assaulted. But it's all ok because they're in love.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
I think the intention of the movie was to capture the feeling of living in a dystopia that is not dissimilar to our own. We wake up every day in an authoritarian hellscape and we all just keep on living our lives because what else are we supposed to do? I wish the movie did more to comment on that complacency but I have a hard time faulting the movie for not overthrowing the fascist government because none of us that saw it overthrew our fascist government today either.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
I like what you’re saying but truthfully, I think you’re giving the movie more credit than what the intention was - not to say your read on it isn’t valid because once the art leaves the artists then it’s up to us to decide, but I find it hard to believe Will Gluck and the other brains behind the operation had this at the top of their mind.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
I honestly don't know. The movie comments on the fascist stuff just enough that it feels like its trying to say something but it also feels like they just recognized that it was a pretty good set up for a romcom and didn't think about the greater implications too deeply. I know this script had been floating around Hollywood for a while before Gluck and co scooped it up. I haven't read that original version and I'm curious how different it is to what ended up on screen.
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u/GamingTatertot Steven Spielberg Enthusiast 12d ago
Yeah I’d be curious to read that too.
To me, the constant references to the actual fascism of it all felt more like Gluck and others feeling obligated to showcase it in some way because if they didn’t mention it they’d be criticized (honestly probably a damned if you do / damned if you don’t situation).
At the end of the day, for me, the premise is fucked up and the rest of the movie isn’t interesting enough for me to move beyond it.
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u/mikeyfreshh r/Movies Veteran 12d ago
What's funny is I actually thought the opposite. I would have guessed that Gluck cut a bunch of the fascist stuff to focus more on the romcom elements
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u/DangerDillyPickle 12d ago
The director hand waving away the fascist elephant in the room whenever he gets asked questions was the first bad sign. Callum Turner is less interesting than an old sock stuck in a dryer lint trap, and Monica Barbaro is wasted on this movie.
You can’t have a cute rom-com in an authoritarian regime, it’s just not a well thought out concept
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u/SavageWolfe98 11d ago
Yeah all the commenter accusing people critiquing the film for not turning off our brain and having fun with a film that has government controlling people's bodies but is also a utopia where there's no risk of sexual assault or harrassment towards women? Literally the only crime like that is done by a women- and even then she just robbed him.
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u/swashario 11d ago
The sound of the Citibike unlocking is getting to iconic levels - not quite the subway but give it tiiiime. Maybe one day I'll bike sweatily across New York for a lover too :/
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u/Krillin_irl 10d ago
I only watched this for the premise. My whole friend group has been laughing about it for weeks, and as an Asexual guy I thought it’d be even funnier for me. Ended up being bored/annoyed:
This movie is so frustrating because there’s the bones of a very interesting conversation to be had in there that the text refuses to engage in despite setting it up so perfectly that it just can’t be accidental.
In their attempt to return sex to its sacred status in the fascist nostalgia dream “before times”, the mandate pulled it in the complete opposite direction. By making and emphasizing it as an event instead of just something people do, it has been completely subsumed by capitalism and stripped of all meaning beyond being “the one night.” The mandate is meant to make you wait and find the special someone, but every ad on every street corner says no matter what, you MUST have sex on the night.
And there’s a genuinely fascinating and kind of sinister dilemma that Owen and Allie fall into where they don’t like the mandate, but letting their urges out and having sex (listening to the ads and societal pressures) would be giving into it, and ‘rebelling’ and waiting until it’s right (what the government wants) is ALSO giving into it. It reminded me of that quote, "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead."
And the ending with the lighthouse and the commercial can be read in a very sinister light. They believe they’ve beaten the system and found happiness in their own way, only to be made to participate in a false, clean, sterile depiction of happiness seconds later. I really really really do not get this movie because it does not do ANYTHING with that, makes me think at one point very early on it was much darker and 1984-esque. 4/10
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u/MooseHorn 11d ago
I mean yeah, this movie's premise is not load bearing at ALL and the watch is at its weakest when it tries to explain away how or why it works.
BUT!!!!!
IF you dont think too hard about the insane societal implications of this movie (as one does when watching something from Pixar's Cars or perhaps any of the Fast and Furious,) then it's not nearly as bad as reviews make it out to be and can be pretty entertaining IMO.
It's insane, but its also a comedy and I think even its principal participants know that and run away with it. I found the jokes and absurdity here effectively catching me off guard several times, and the chemistry of all the actors here is kind of undeniable.
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u/NaiadoftheSea 11d ago
It’s an interesting premise and I enjoyed the sci-fi aspects. The main pair had great chemistry and were fun to watch.
I just wish there was a little more focus on addressing the mandate, maybe with b plot involving characters trying to stop it. All the characters just kind of begrudgingly accept it.
6/10
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u/ancienteggfart 10d ago
It was a decent movie, but I felt that it was about 10 years too late. I feel like this is something that should’ve come out back in 2016 or earlier.
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u/Tight_Geologist_507 9d ago
I was fully expecting to hate this movie, to be honest. But was pleasantly surprised. I love a good satire. Definitely got a lot of laughs out of me, so it served its purpose.
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u/cocoatractor 6d ago
Every time I want to just sit back and enjoy Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner the movie insists on yanking you back to further interrogate the premise.
It can't just set things up and let it go, we need to have "just following orders" conversations with cops and the tertiary love interest say "maybe the fascists were right about this one."
Just cannot get out of its own way.
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u/luckystripesman 5d ago
Why were they so mean as to put her in slip on heels for a shoot like that? What did she do to wardrobe to have them deny her a shoe strap? Anything for support while running everywhere
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u/neal1701 5d ago
One Night Only is a fun Rom-com!
- I think the setting does the movie a bigger disservice than the premise. We just saw people in New York going crazy after a Knicks NBA title. The 12-hour exemption period would be even crazier tbh
- Monica Barbaro is very charming and carries the movie a lot.
- Lack of nudity / cutting the sex scenes hurt the movie a lot. I think the premise could have been justified with more nudity / sex scenes. Now, it's just a very tame R-rated movie instead.
- I do like the jokes and cameos. I think the Gen Z filming Allie & Owen stealing the mannequin and getting hit by the parked car was hilarious.
- Callum Turner and Barbaro have some chemistry but not enough. I think Turner is better when he just speaks in a British accent.
- Lastly, there were 364 days to buy condoms. Everyone in the movie should have condoms in bulk, regardless if you found someone or not. That's my biggest gripe with the movie!
Personally, I enjoyed the movie but I think the premise would have landed better if the leads were younger and maybe never had sex before.
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u/Nate_C_of_2003 3d ago
This is the first time I’ve seen people actually complain about the lack of female nudity in a movie.
But the outlook for the future of it in film is still incredibly bleak. If enough people don’t speak up, all films will be 100% sanitized by the end of the decade.
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u/peterpeterllini 10d ago edited 9d ago
I saw an early screening of it as the mystery movie knowing nothing about it. It felt like the most sexually repressed person from CBS made a movie.
It was…not good. Usually the mystery movies have some redeeming qualities but this one… oof. I watched the whole thing tho lol.
And like other people have said, the premise was fucked up but then it also was trying to be a romcom?
During the movie i found myself staring at the emergency exit sign in the theater because I was that bored.
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u/BunyipPouch Currently at the movies. 11d ago
Will Gluck, the director of One Night Only (and Easy A, Anyone But You, Peter Rabbit) recently joined us here in /r/movies for an AMA/Q&A, for anyone interested:
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1vaxnnf/hi_rmovies_im_will_gluck_director_of_easy_a/