Review - One Night Only

Starring Monica Barbaro, Callum Turner, Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton. Screenplay by Travis Braun. Directed by Will Gluck. Rated R. 102 minutes. In theaters.

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If you’re dumb enough to spend as much time on social media as I do, you might already be aware that the premise of the new romantic comedy “One Night Only” seems to have broken people’s brains. The short version is that a Bible-banging Republican Congress has passed a mandate making pre-marital sex illegal in the United States, except for one night a year. Every August 7^th, between the hours of 7pm and 7am, single folks are allowed to get freaky with whomever they’d like. So basically it’s “The Purge,” but for screwing, which I’m pretty sure is how the project was sold to studio executives.

It’s a silly gimmick that raises all sorts of practical and political concerns the film has no interest in exploring, using it instead as the backdrop for another of “Anyone But You” director Will Gluck’s cheerfully cluttered, mismatched-couple rom-coms in which two absurdly attractive people who obviously belong together bicker and fight, letting screenplay contrivances keep them apart until they’re the last ones to realize they’ve fallen in love.

In this case, it’s Callum Turner’s affable pizza shop owner and Monica Barbaro’s adorable, stage fright-stricken singer, who makes a living belting out pharmaceutical jingles based on Top 40 hits. One of the better early gags is that whenever you think you’re hearing Vanessa Carlton or Sara Bareilles songs, they turn out to be ads for psoriasis medication and vaginal hygiene products. I was initially hoping the filmmakers would commit to this bit for the entire soundtrack, but since director Gluck can’t go eleven seconds without a needle-drop, it was probably unsustainable.