‘One Night Only’: this limp romcom will give no one a happy ending

Imagine an alternate reality where premarital sex is only lawful for one night of the year. Thanks to a US government mandate, the police can arrest anyone who’s caught bang(ed) to rights, and everyone has an Orwellian wrist tattoo that switches from red to green when the 12-hour exemption period begins. It sounds like the pitch for a pretty grim dystopian thriller, but it’s actually the USP of this old-school romcom. How old-school? It’s opening in cinemas, not going straight to streaming. Read more: The best films of 2026… so far! Though One Night Only is directed by Will Gluck, who gave the genre a shot in the arm with 2023’s Sydney Sweeney-Glenn Powell hit Anyone But You, it never quite hits its stride. In theory, a romcom can overcome any icky premise. In 1990’s irresistible Pretty Woman, a Hollywood sex worker falls for a jaded one-percenter who pays her to spend time with him, but that film had Julia Roberts’ incandescent charisma and some great set-pieces. One Night Only has an appealing lead duo, Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown) and Callum Turner (Masters Of The Air), but their chemistry is tepid rather than sweltering. The story begins as the clock ticks down to the an...