Can government-mandated celibacy save us from romantic despair?
I had a blast in the cinema watching “One Night Only.” I had encountered headlines of bad reviews on social media beforehand, and was fully expecting unfunny jokes, a contrived storyline, and a millennial back and forth attempting to cater to a Gen Z audience—not unlike director Will Gluck’s previous film, “Anyone But You,” starring Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.
Here’s what I got instead: an absurd concept, a surplus of scrumptious celebrity cameos from Julia Fox to Pete Davidson to Ziwe; the 2013 hit song “Brave” transformed to a jingle for psoriasis cream; Callum Turner’s surprising comedic chops; and Monica Barbaro’s enchanting voice.
As the romantic leads Owen and Allie (played by Turner and Barbaro respectively) run across New York City trying to find a love-match, “One Night Only” delivers a series of entertaining almosts—a two-hour display of tantalizing anguish and arousal.
By no means was it an amazing film, nor was it a knee-slapper, but for someone who entered the cinema with decisively low expectations, it was a pleasant surprise. Despite the dystopian premise, it’s a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Perhaps that is why, by the end, you’re left feeling both giddy and a little guilty.
The film’s ideological downfall
“One Night Only” tries to have it both ways. In a fictional America where every citizen by the age of 18 has a hormonal sensor installed on their wrist to track—and criminalize—sexual activity outside of marriage, the film simultaneously celebrates and condemns the government’s attack on bodily autonomy.
In placing its central characters in a setting where premarital sex is only legal for a 12-hour window every 365 days, the film demands we displace sex as one of the most fundamental aspects of our relationships while also making it virtually impossible to think about anything other than getting laid.
It’s a rom-com that contains the line, “Maybe the fascists were right about this one,” and doesn’t go out of its way to prove otherwise.
The film begins as a shallow yet amusing critique of right-wing conservatism. Though it doesn’t present a tangible stance on, say, reproductive rights, it does gesture toward political commentary. But by the end, the message is clear: that chastity is inherently virtuous, and that the truest test of love is in how long one can wait.
Commitment, the film suggests, is what makes sex meaningful. And anything outside of that is just messing around.
But is that true? Is that why we’re in a so-called sex recession?
Why is Gen Z having less sex?
Just last month, The New York Times published a transcript of a podcast episode of “The Opinions” titled, “Gen Z-ers Are Ditching Sex. They Might Be On to Something.” In a conversation with sex reporter and author of “The Second Coming” Carter Sherman, and opinion columnist and author of “Rethinking Sex” Christine Emba, Nadja Spiegelman lays out the data suggesting that young people are having less sex.
Both Sherman and Emba tied this decline to the rise in technology, particularly the mass availability of virtual companionship and online pornography. They both express concern for how this downward trend impedes the growth of young individuals—on both a personal and political level. They both agree that sex is essential in developing interpersonal literacy and sociopolitical agency, basing their argument on how less sex generally points toward less connection.
But Sherman and Emba, much like the people behind “One Night Only,” seem to suggest an idea that raises concern, especially for young progressives. Neither of them being Gen Z, there is a moralizing air to the way they perceive how young people navigate sexual relationships—this idea that modern dating, the rise in dating apps and stand-ins for real intimacy, is what’s making sex problematic and, therefore, undesirable.
Where lies the real issue?
While it could very well be true that contemporary dating conventions are in large part to blame for the sex recession, it fails to foreground the idea that sex is not only a thing that is enacted, but a meaning that is inherited. When young people are bombarded with notions that only a certain kind of sex is good or appropriate, it hinders their ability to determine for themselves its value amid an evolving cultural landscape.
This is where “One Night Only” fails to offer anything by way of critique. It simply reinforces the idea that there is a singular sexual prescription—that of sex between two long-term partners—and that everything outside of that is what contributes to making sex in general meaningless.
But in reality, sex is always going to be meaningful. Not necessarily as a sacred rite between individuals, but as a valiant venture into the unknown, into the particular and unrepeatable interaction of bare bodies—one that demands vulnerability, curiosity, and a sharpened intuition.
Sex will always be about context and emergence. Therefore, sex will always be about finding new ways to relate to one another, of radically challenging the social scripts we have unknowingly subscribed to. Failing to recognize that, and worse, dismissing it, is ultimately what lies at the heart of our despair.
In the end, I couldn’t care less if young people are having less sex or more sex, only that they continue to question what they have been made to believe sex is or means.
“One Night Only” opens in Philippine cinemas Aug. 26
