We all need to unplug from time to time. Outside of work, the stress of keeping up with family, the pressure to keep pursuing daily personal goals. We all have our own way of letting off steam: for many, the answer is sex. Pure, direct, purgative. Simple as biology itself.
It’s all good until someone else takes it away from us. When people who have no right to judge our lives condemn and humiliate us for answering to human nature, we’re told to question ourselves. ‘One Night a Year’ answers those kinds of questions and asks us to reflect on them… but not too deeply. In fact it forgets the premise. It’s only an entertaining film about finding love in a difficult moment in life. But you know what? It reminds you again, it’s important. Until the producers say otherwise again, which will be only moments later.
Like any good relationship: it’s complicated.
The best night of their lives
The plot of ‘One Night a Year’ could be simple, though it’s wrapped in layers of complexity. At its core—and what matters most—is the story of how Owen, a handsome, witty pizza-maker with a big heart played by Callum Turner, meets Allie, a singer with big ambitions in New York City portrayed by Monica Barbaro. Between them arises an initial hostility that blossoms into friendship and perhaps something more throughout the strangest night of their lives.
It’s straightforward, but not direct. What isn’t stated is that the film is set in a world where sex outside of marriage has been banned by the government, with the exception of twelve hours each year. It’s within that framework that Owen and Allie meet as they search for the perfect partner to spend the night with and blow off a little steam.
It would remain merely a curious premise not given much weight if it weren’t for the fact that the film asks you to pay attention to this conflict from time to time. There are mentions of oppressive governments, of greater forces in capitalism that are enforcing the anti-sex mandate. But as soon as they’re mentioned, they’re downgraded: we’re meant to laugh at the situation. And soon after, the topic is revisited, about people’s freedom, but in how it supposedly serves others.
Fleeting emotions
The problem isn’t that its message is ambiguous, confusing, or makes little sense when you view it outside the film. The challenge for ‘One Night a Year’ is that it doesn’t want to decide between being something meaningful or simply a passing diversion. In that sense it mirrors the very idea of a one-night stand: does it amount to something more, or does it fade once the act is over?
If we can overlook the deeper meaning behind the film and its increasingly bombarding message, this is a feature-length movie that serves to entertain and amuse us. There are laughs, there are sorrows, and there are tender moments between the leads that will soften the audience’s heart. Given its genre, it’s best watched with a partner or with a date on a spicy mission. It fulfills its objective in that department with effective humor, a straightforward style, and plenty of absurdities.
Conclusion
Beyond this, there isn’t much more to extract from the film. It won’t be a transcendent story in the memories of many, nor does it do anything radically different to stand out within the genre. The only point of interest is that pro-capitalist, fascist regime that the director keeps asking us to notice between jokes, but aside from employing such loaded words, the film doesn’t really engage with it or tries to slide past it. Perhaps there exists another version of the movie that goes in a different direction with this issue and would delve deeper.
Who knows. What we have is a solid, transient entertainment, a fun comedy and little else. If you and your partner are unsure what to see at the cinema, this might help spark a spicy night.
– Entertaining jokes.
– It insists on the world’s politics but doesn’t go deeper into it.
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