Warning: Spoilers ahead for One Night Only.
Easy A and Anyone but You director Will Gluck is back with another modern rom-com, this time set in a fictionalized version of New York City on the one night of the year when it’s legal for unmarried people to have sex.
One Night Only, directed by Gluck and written by Travis Braun, imagines a world where, three years ago, Congress passed a mandate outlawing premarital sex. The U.S. government tracks civilians 18 and older using biosensor tattoos on their wrists: green for married couples and red for single people. The only exception comes once a year, when the nationwide chastity mandate is temporarily lifted and the use of protection is mandatory.
It’s under these unusual circumstances that Owen (Callum Turner), the owner of Claremont Pizza, and Allie (Monica Barbaro), a singer, meet. After a less-than-stellar first encounter, they embark on separate, occasionally intersecting journeys throughout the night.
Here’s what happens to them by the end of the movie and, perhaps most importantly, whether they hook up.
What Happens In ‘One Night Only?’
At the start of the movie, Owen has dinner at a fancy Japanese restaurant with his girlfriend of three years, Malika (Maya Hawke), intending to propose. But over dinner, Malika tells Owen that she wants to “explore” and plans to sleep with someone else that night from their apartment building.
Allie, a hopeless romantic looking for a genuine connection, heads to a bar with her friend. After her friend ditches her for a guy she meets while waiting in line for the bathroom, Allie returns home, where her roommate lends her a short, sparkly dress and encourages her to get back out there and find someone.
Allie and Owen first meet when they bump into each other on the sidewalk outside her apartment building, both distracted by two people having sex in a nearby car. Moments later, Owen vomits in front of her after eating his and Malika’s meals at dinner. Disgusted, Allie tells him to get it together and heads back upstairs.
They both try — and fail — to sleep with other people, and keep crossing paths amid a series of rom-com-style setbacks. At one point, Owen suggests that maybe they should just have sex with each other, but Allie turns him down. She refuses to let the mandate change who she is or what she values, insisting that she doesn’t want meaningless sex.
Eventually, Allie ends up at Owen’s pizzeria, hungry and no closer to finding someone she’d actually want to sleep with.
While the two share a pizza that Owen makes from scratch, Malika calls. Owen asks Allie what he should do, and although she briefly imagines kissing him right there in the pizzeria, she tells him to answer. Malika says she couldn’t go through with hooking up with Diego and wants Owen to come home. Owen apologizes to Allie and asks her to lock up before he leaves. As he heads out, he tells her that he hopes she gets her romantic, albeit cliché, Empire State Building moment with someone.
Do Owen And Allie Have Sex?
Yes, Owen and Allie eventually have premarital sex on the one day each year when it’s legal, but not during the year in which most of the movie takes place.
When Owen returns to the apartment he shares with Malika, she admits she was wrong about sleeping with other people and even suggests they get married so they can have sex whenever they want. But Owen realizes he may have blown his chance with Allie and leaves to find her, with just one hour left before the exemption period ends.
Owen arrives outside Allie’s apartment building at 6 a.m. but comes up empty-handed because she hasn’t returned home. Dejected, he visits his mom’s apartment and tells her that Allie is fun, smart, weird and talented, and that he’s never met anyone like her before, but he has no idea how to find her. Then he remembers a key detail Allie shared during one of their conversations about her favorite place.
Meanwhile, Allie returns home, where Troy, the 12-year-old boy being babysat by her roommate, tells her that a guy came looking for her. She bikes to the Little Red Lighthouse along the Hudson River, her favorite place and the inspiration for her biosensor tattoo, hoping he’ll be there. At first, he’s nowhere to be found. Then he suddenly appears with coffee for both of them, having remembered the exact order she casually mentioned earlier that night.
Owen apologizes for leaving her, and Allie replies, “I shouldn’t have let you go.”
The pair finally share their first kiss. With 11 minutes remaining before the rule goes back into effect, they climb to the top of the lighthouse and make out inside.
Echoing Allie’s earlier feelings about the annual exemption, Owen says he doesn’t want the mandate to dictate their relationship and suggests they wait to have sex. She agrees. While they’re kissing, they hear a psoriasis commercial featuring a song Allie recorded to the tune of Sara Bareilles’ “Brave” and realize it’s being filmed just outside the lighthouse. A crew member encourages them to join the shoot, and the two end up dancing on top of the lighthouse.
The movie then jumps ahead one year, once again to the annual day when premarital sex is legal. After the countdown reaches zero, they initially decide to go out for dinner but change their mind and start kissing before heading to her bedroom.
“Finally,” Troy says as Owen closes the bedroom door.