Script vs Screen: ONE NIGHT ONLY
Ah, the Black List. The best of the best unproduced scripts floating around Hollywood curated into one definitive list.
Surely a movie made from a Black List script is gonna be great, right?
Today we're talking about ONE NIGHT ONLY. A film with a concept that can most simply be described as THE PURGE but for premarital sex.
And in spirit of THE PURGE, this unique concept is the only interesting thing about the story.
I know this for a fact because the trailers drew me in (under my own silly assumption the movie would maybe dive a little deeper into its own premise!), so I read the screenplay, got pissed off, then watched the movie, and got even more pissed off.
Y'all already know that means I have A LOT of thoughts. And I documented my notes every step of the way. I basically went through all 7 stages of grief between the initial trailers and leaving the theater.
So step on into my pizza shop where I'll serve you a more emotionally resonant take than the movie could ever dream of giving.
The Promise of the Premise
One of the immediate thoughts you may have when watching the trailer for this film is: "How would this type of world even be possible?"
And if you're a curious, logical human like most all of us are, your next question would be: "What is this naturally ethically charged premise saying about our world today?"
I mean, beneath the wattpad fanfic-esque romcom tone this trailer presents, there HAS to be some sort of intentional statement here about bodily autonomy, government control, purity culture... Right?
That's what I thought too.
But no, this premise was neither a teenager's fanfic adapted into a film, nor written with a deeper message at its core. This is an original screenplay written by a professional writer/producer, with no clearly discernible thematic take on its own premise. And somehow this is a script that was deemed worthy of earning a spot on the coveted Black List in 2024 and then made into a movie distributed theatrically by one of the biggest media companies today, Universal Pictures.
Now I have to say, the premise is so unique, it IS naturally very marketable. You can pitch this movie in under 15 words and have people interested on the concept alone. "A rom-com set in a world where premarital sex is illegal." That's interesting! And I understand based only on this why the film would be made.
But what makes the premise interesting is the underlying promise of a bolder thematic statement the concept naturally implies. Taking that away and instead turning what would otherwise be a strong sci-fi film premise into a simple backdrop for a cheesy rom-com is borderline criminal. Like you literally stole from us what could have been an awesome movie.
So, okay, the movie has no thematic statement about its own premise. At the very least, you'd expect the story has airtight answers for basic questions to support the rules of its world like:
How could a law like this be enforced?
Why was it enacted in the first place?
Couldn't people game the system by repeatedly get married and divorced to everyone they date, or even get married and hook up with other married people?
As you look beyond the trailer of this film, you'll find there almost no answers. And what little answers are present actually raise more logic issues, or even contradict other established rules.
The Illogical Logic
Believe it or not, the original screenplay version or this story had stronger logic than the film. Neither fully holds up, but the script raises fewer questions.
In the screenplay, everyone receives the same tattoo biosensor that detects prolactin (which the screenplay says "spikes during sex") and turns green during the annual 12-hour exemption period.
Right... So that's not really how prolactin works, and one quick google search will tell you that. In reality, prolactin increases after orgasm. Which raises a whole new series of questions that the script never bothers to answer, like:
Wouldn't masturbation trigger the sensor?
What if someone has sex without orgasming? Couldn't people just continually ride the edge while hooking up to evade the law?
Prolactin doesn't ONLY increase after orgasm, so what if you're just doing something else that causes the same physiological response?
The science doesn't need to be perfect, but the rules need to make sense within the world you've created.
And to be fair, in the world of the script's story, the rule is "prolactin spikes determines when sex has been had with 100% certainty."
But the movie tries to make this chemical detection system more accurate by changing the sensor's mechanics. Rather than tracking prolactin, we're now told it monitors "shared spikes" of dopamine, testosterone, and oxytocin between two people.
Okay... Those chemicals can increase for a billion reasons that have nothing to do with having sex.
What if two people are just super happy about something together?
Or, if we accept the film's logic that those chemicals definitively determine sexual activity, what if two people happen to be masturbating at the same time near the same location?
So basically the story the filmmakers are committed to telling is that the government has developed the world's most wildly inaccurate sex detector and is using it to reliably control the masses 364.5 days a year for the past 3 years.
And this is all before we get to the bigger questions. The main one being: why was this law passed in the first place?
Both the script and film's answer is: "Americans wanted to return to a time where sex was reserved for the sanctity of marriage."
HUH????????????
So you're telling me, of ALLLLLL the takes you could have on this premise, you choose the most bland, one-dimensional, ridiculous one you possibly could? I'm sorry but you're a coward.
Because look at what this premise is handing you:
a government that has decided it can regulate who is allowed to have sex and when.
a society where people's bodies are literally being monitored 24/7 by the government in an incredibly invasive way
biometric technology implanted into people's bodies from the age of 18.
a world in which intimacy, marriage, sex, surveillance, and bodily autonomy have all become intertwined.
THERE IS SO MUCH YOU COULD DO WITH THIS.
First of all, if ONLY married people are allowed to have sex, this implies there is something uniquely acceptable about this vs people having sex outside of marriage.
The main difference between these two that I can think of is the risk of unwanted pregnancies, and therefore abortions, is higher in unmarried couples.
So you could make this film a statement about what happens when extremist views on birth control are taken too far.
Ironically, in the film only, they actually do mention that teen pregnancies have gone down since the law was passed. But this contradicts the film's own logic.
It's established that people get their sensors when they turn 18. Wouldn't teen sex and pregnancy increase under these conditions? They're the only ones being unmonitored and are arguably the most horny people on the planet.
It also doubles down on the mandate being in place to prevent unwanted pregnancies by introducing the idea that condoms are MANDATORY in this world.
Yet it's somehow impossible for the two leads to find a condom on this day........ The one day a year where condoms can be used by the masses....... The one day that condom companies had all year to prepare for...... Their biggest sales day of the year..........
The one thing that would prevent what appears to be the reason for the mandate (unwanted pregnancies) is unavailable in NEW YORK CITY on its 3rd annual sex night.....
The script doesn't have this problem despite following the same basic plot because it never says condoms are mandatory. So it eliminates the idea that every condom company is just super incompetent, and the responsibility is then placed solely on the idiot citizens who didn't prepare for this day in advance.
Which is already poor enough logic, but not as bad as the film's.
But I digress!!!
The story could also have dived deeper into purity culture and slut shaming. Because almost certainly this law wouldn't be passed if it wasn't to control women specifically. We already live in a world that makes women feel bad about themselves for enjoying sex, so why not explore this and show how the world devolved into this state based on that ideology?
Instead, both the script and film essentially are just saying: Americans just like traditional marriage hehe
And the movie even tries to make its own political explanation into a joke. There's a scene where Owen's mom and her fuckbuddy Rick are arguing, and basically point out that Americans voted for the politicians who enacted the mandate.
But that doesn't actually make the premise more coherent. It just changes the explanation from "the government did this" to "well, technically, the voters did this."
Okay?
AND WHY DID THEY WANT THIS?????
What social problem were they trying to solve?
What sort of debauchery was happening before the mandate?
Did people demand it because they believed casual sex was destroying marriage?
Did they want to increase marriage rates?
Was there some massive cultural movement behind it?
No, we're not supposed to think about that for some reason.
We're not supposed to think about the premise of this film at all.
And that's the story's biggest and most unforgivable flaw. It's missing, or straight up ignoring, that deeper "why."
The premise itself invites us to think about the implications of how society got to this point. Instead, the story treats the chastity law like a quirky bit of background information that exists primarily to give the plot a ticking time clock and therefore "stakes."
Which conveniently leads to my next point:
Stakes aren't Stake-y
My steak is not too juicy. My lobster is not too buttery. In fact, I think I'll send this movie back to the kitchen because the stake is actually missing.
Someone tell me, quickly, what happens if the two leads don't have sex?
QUICKLY!!!!!!
Oh, you can't think of anything?
And wait, you're telling me the plot itself actually undermines its own stakes by showing the two leads repeatedly failing to hookup with other people, so why should it matter if these two specifically don't hook up with each other???
No way....
So the movie doesn't make sense on a thematic level, internal world logic level, or even a fundamental storytelling level?
Can ONE NIGHT ONLY pick just ONE struggle?
ba dum tsss.... I'll be here all night... one night only! 🤠
Even if we accept that we're supposed to care A LOT about these two leads hooking up, the question is: WHY?
In the script, we know so little about them that there's quite literally nothing bringing them together aside from mutual attraction and horniness.
Hannah (renamed Allie in the film for some reason) is working for a demanding boss but (in one throwaway line tells us) she dreams of writing a musical.
Owen is an aspiring pizza shop owner, currently working as a chef at the best pizza place in NYC.
Right, so... What's so magical about this connection?
Basically nothing in the script, but because of this I actually accepted the stakes more than I did when watching the film.
What the film does well is give both characters a stronger personality. Now Allie is a working vocalist who dreams of doing something more than infomercials. Owen is already a successful pizza shop owner.
Both of them have established passions that are clearly shown the first time we see them appear on screen.
This added character depth (ha) makes us naturally think these two are going to connect with each other on a deeper level than just horniness, right?
Actually that's wrong.
The dynamic between these two and what's drawing them together largely remains the same in the script and film. So yes, their connection is almost 100% driven by mutual horniness.
In the script, when there was so little personality-wise to go off of, I accepted that hey. These two just wanna hook up. Because if they don't, they've gotta wait a whole year!
And in the end, when they miss the window they can have sex, Owen asks Hannah what she's doing next year. To which she cheekily responds: "What are you doing tomorrow?"
This was, in my opinion, the perfect ending.
Both characters decided they'd like to continue getting to know each other beyond how hot and horny they are.
But in the film, because these two had more clearly defined personalities and yet still didn't connect on that level and instead just resorted to flirty banter over how horny and hot they are, I actually cared even less about them getting together. Because why should I care if they don't even really care about each other?
In both the script and film, these two had only met that day. So we're starting off on a very low level of urgency to begin with. But when their motivations match the dialogue (in the script), I get it more than when their motivations don't match their dialogue (in the film).
Which brings us to:
Inconsistent Characters
Allie repeatedly says in the film she's looking for a deeper connection. So why is she using the one night of the year dedicated to casual sex to find it?
At the beginning of the movie, she and her friend literally go out with the goal of finding someone to hook up with. But somewhere along the way, Allie decides she's tired of meaningless sex and wants something real.
Yet spends the entire night desperately trying to find someone to have casual sex with.
But more importantly, why does she keep falling for guys who are very obviously NOT offering the thing she says she wants?
First she meets an annoying, self-centered guy at a bar. She isn't interested at first but his impromptu singing somehow doesn't make her dryer than a box of uncooked noodles and they immediately go to hook up. Later she finds out that this guy is wanted by the police because he's slept with 15 other women this year, with a few of them being this very night. (which also undermines the stakes of the story since there clearly is no immediate consequence for breaking this law. why would anyone follow the rules when you can break them 15 times before something happens??? and like -- he hooked up with 10+ people outside of the mandated sex period, but was only arrested on the one night where what he's doing is actually legal????? 🤯)
Then she meets Ezra, a celebrity she has a crush on, and he is almost immediately presented as an obnoxious, self-absorbed douchebag. This is not a man who is hiding his true nature from her, yet she's falling for him and thinks he could be The One. Until he drunkenly falls off a piano and bashes his head open.
If the point is supposed to be that Allie must learn to distinguish genuine connection from superficial attraction, then the movie needs to actually make that an arc.
Instead, she stops liking Ezra because he was too drunk and injured.
It's also a bit wild that this was her breaking point and not when he literally shushed her when she tried to sing with him.
Then there's Owen, who was hours away from proposing to his girlfriend.
He takes Malika to a fancy restaurant because he's going to propose. She breaks up with him because she wants to sleep with someone else.
Owen is rightfully devastated.
For about 2 minutes.
Then he tries to hook up with the bartender at the first place he goes.
Then he meets Allie and is immediately super intrigued by her. Within 12 hours, he's apparently falling for her.
And somewhere in between there, he's also trying to hook up with another woman he met at a party (but he fumbles).
If he can move on that quickly and have zero emotions about the breakup after the first couple minutes of it happening, did he really even care about Malika to the point where he genuinely wanted to spend his life with her? Or was the proposal just for funsies.
And this is where I think the film's attempt to give these characters more personality actually backfires.
Because the movie does give us more information about them than the screenplay does, but it's like it refuses to make these traits form a consistent character.
Another example: Allie is a singer. But she has stage fright. Yet she sings confidently in a bar with a stranger. Yet she gets on stage at a party and gives it her all, with little encouragement.
Even ignoring these inconsistencies, what does her stage fright contribute to the story? It's not a quality that bleeds into or affects other areas of her life.
Character traits aren't character development.
If Allie is afraid of performing in front of crowds, then that fear should tell us something about her. Like, maybe her journey throughout the night is about becoming comfortable putting herself out there -- both professionally and personally.
Instead it's just another character trait the screenplay gives her without actually integrating it into her character arc.
And the same thing happens with Owen.
We're told he's passionate about pizza. We're shown that he owns his own restaurant. We even get the cute little "save the pizza" moment at the beginning of the film that establishes him as a good guy.
But what does his passion for cooking actually have to do with his relationship with Allie?
There is one genuinely good change from the screenplay: in the movie, Owen says his favorite part of sex is "the after." (in the script its "having my ears kissed" which doesn't tell us much about him at all)
That's actually character development!
Because suddenly we're learning that what Owen really values isn't just the physical act. It's the intimacy afterward.
THAT is the kind of character detail this movie needed. But unfortunately, it comes after we've spent most of the movie watching him desperately try to find someone -- anyone -- to sleep with.
So near the end when Allie shows up at the pizza shop and the two of them finally have their heart-to-heart, we're supposed to understand that they're discovering something meaningful about each other.
But all we really know is: they're attracted to each other, they have some cute banter, they've survived a bunch of increasingly ridiculous situations together, and Owen likes the "after" of sex.
The movie keeps telling us that Allie wants a genuine connection, while giving her almost no reason to recognize that connection in Owen.
It keeps telling us that Owen is a guy who values intimacy and was deeply in love with his girlfriend, while having him immediately try to sleep with multiple other women and then fall for a woman he's known for approximately twelve hours.
The characters aren't behaving according to what the movie tells us about them. This makes them inaccessible, because we can't understand the logic behind their contradicting actions.
Owen's problem isn't that he wants to sleep with other women after getting dumped. It's that the movie wants me to believe he was genuinely in love with Malika AND that he's genuinely falling for Allie AND that he's just horny AND!!! that he values emotional intimacy... All within the span of 12 hours.
Those things could coexist, but the movie doesn't do the work to connect them.
And that's the difference between giving a character traits and writing a character.
At this point I'm sure you're wondering:
What Else Could Possibly Be Wrong?
Oh, I'll tell you!
We've established that the premise doesn't really mean anything, the rules don't make much sense, the stakes aren't actually stakes, and the characters don't behave like the people the story tells us they are.
But I read the screenplay and watched the movie, so naturally I have more specific things to complain about.
This is where the differences between the two versions get real interesting. Because the movie did fix some of the screenplay's problems... While also creating entirely new ones.
And some of the screenplay's biggest problems somehow survived the adaptation process.
What the Script Gets Wrong
There are a bunch of little screenplay choices that feel like they were written because the writer thought they'd be funny rather than because they actually serve the story.
Owen's Winnie the Pooh obsession is the biggest example. Is there a particular reason Owen loves Winnie the Pooh? Does it tell us something about him? Does it connect to his arc? Is it relevant to the plot?
The answer to all of these questions is no. And that's never a good sign in a screenplay.
I can already hear the: "It's not that deep."
But it IS THAT DEEP!!
If you're writing a screenplay, every detail you choose to put on the page is something you're asking the audience to notice.
If you give a character a bizarrely specific obsession, I'm naturally going to assume there's a reason for it. Otherwise, why did you waste the words?
Worst Things That Survived From Script to Screen
Fake-Outs
The screenplay LOVES a fake-out. And the film loves them even more, because the plot-based reasons for them to be there were removed, and yet they were still there.
In the script, the first one actually serves the story. Hannah imagines herself talking to the hot Italian guy she hooked up with the previous year. Then we cut back to reality and she's actually talking to some finance bro.
When I first read it, I thought this was annoying because I didn't yet know the characters or the world well enough for a fake-out like this to feel earned.
Then a few pages later, Italian Guy stands her up. And later in the script, he actually shows up for real.
In the film, the context is that she actually never met Sebastian. He ghosted her the year before. So why even include the fake-out if it no longer has relevance to the plot?
There's a fake-out near the end that's annoying in the script and on screen.
In this one, Hannah is imagining herself having sex with Owen for hours, only for us to discover that none of it happened.
It doesn't reveal anything about their characters. It doesn't deepen the story. It doesn't recontextualize anything.
It's just: HAHA! YOU THOUGHT THE MOVIE WAS ENDING!
Which is a really mean prank to pull on me when I already wanted to leave 30 minutes ago. 😔
The fake-outs are even more annoying when you're sitting there watching the scene play out in real time.
The second one in particular goes on FOREVER. And when the audience in my theatre realized it was fake, they literally groaned.
If your audience is audibly disappointed in the reality of your plot, you didn't successfully create a funny fake-out. You've just wasted everyone's time.
The Leads Are Kept Apart for Way Too Long
The screenplay and film spend the majority of the first half keeping Owen and Hannah separated, despite their relationship being by far the most compelling part of the story.
In the script, there's quite literally zero reason to care about these two as individuals because of the lack of character depth.
And while the film gives both characters more individual personality, it's not enough to make me want to spend half the movie watching them separately.
The rom-com trope of "two people keep getting separated and accidentally running into each other" only works when the characters are already compelling individually and become even more compelling when they're together.
The story's most interesting moments are generally the ones where Owen and Allie are actually interacting. Yet the film and screenplay are fiercely dedicated to making sure we don't get much of that.
The Vomiting Meet-Cute
In the script, Owen just... barfs on her. There isn't really a reason.
He's not drunk. He's not established as sick. The script doesn't give any real setup for it.
It feels like the writer went: Wouldn't it be funny if their meet-cute involved one of them vomiting?
The movie at least tries to give this a reason: Owen ate sushi at the fancy restaurant with Malika earlier, and we're told that's what made him sick. Except we don't see any indication that he's sick before he suddenly vomits on Allie.
The film technically adds a motivation to the gag (pun intended!) without actually setting it up. It's basically the same joke with a tiny explanatory bandaid slapped over it.
The 13-Year-Old
I truly cannot believe this survived.
The screenplay has a 13-year-old boy repeatedly making sexual comments toward Hannah, including jokes explicitly implying that he wants to have sex with her.
And rather than realizing how weird and inappropriate this is and cutting it from the movie, they kept it and somehow made it even more explicit.
And people in the theater didn't laugh -- they gasped. The jokes did not land AT ALL.
There's a difference between a joke about an awkward horny teenager and repeatedly sexualizing a child to the point where the audience is sitting there wondering why this is happening.
I genuinely have no idea what happened during development that resulted in everyone reading this and going: "Yeah gimme more of THAT."
What the Movie Gets Wrong
The movie introduces a bunch of set pieces that are either unnecessary or actively make the story harder to believe.
The fake robbery early on is a perfect example.
Owen witnesses the crime and rushes over just as the cops show up and reveal: IT'S A MOVIE SET!
Ah, the modern day equivalent of "it was all a dream;" how fun.
Especially when there was seemingly no point for this scene other than a quick paycheck for Pete Davidson and Bobby Cannavale.
Get your coin queens, but why did I have to pay the price. I can never get those approximately 70 seconds back.
But the biggest problem with this is that the movie later has the actual police show up to arrest Allie's hookup.
We have no reason to trust what we're seeing, since the cops have already been proven to be fake once!
This is just one example of how the movie just adds stuff instead of adding meaning. More set pieces, more jokes, more character traits, more celebrities... But the underlying character, plot, and thematic problems remain.
And this becomes especially apparent in the ending, which is honestly confusing and seems to defeat the film's own intended purpose.
In the screenplay, the leads simply run out of time to have sex. Owen asks: "What are you doing next year?" Hannah responds: "What are you doing tomorrow?"
The point isn't that sex is bad -- it's that they've spent the night looking for a meaningless sexual encounter and accidentally found someone they actually want to get to know at the end of it all.
They don't need to have sex to prove that their connection is real. The mandate takes sex off the table, and they choose to keep seeing each other anyway.
That's a cute rom-com ending!
The movie changes this pretty substantially.
Owen and Allie still have time to have sex, but they decide not to.
And the reasoning is... Contradictory to the movie's own point.
Earlier in the film, Owen argues that the mandate has actually created something romantic: you only get one night to choose someone, so that choice matters.
The restriction itself has supposedly made sex more meaningful.
Then at the end of the night, they essentially decide: "We should wait until next year."
Rather than rejecting the idea that the government should control when people are allowed to have sex, the ending makes voluntarily following the government's rule seem like the emotionally mature and morally superior choice.
And then, just to really drive the point home, we jump forward one year to watch them finally have sex.
So what exactly were we supposed to take away from this?
The movie spent its entire runtime giving us a premise about government control over sexual autonomy, but its protagonists ultimately decide that the government's arbitrary restriction was actually good for them.
If that's genuinely the message -- fine! But the movie needs to actually make that argument. Instead, it seems to stumble into it accidentally at the last minute.
The screenplay's ending was about choosing a relationship despite the mandate.
The movie's ending is about choosing to wait because of the mandate.
Those are two very different thematic statements.
Script vs Screen: Which One Wins?
Neither option is great, but at least the script had fewer issues as a whole.
Yes, its characters were less developed, but that ended up serving the plot better, since it centers around them both just being super horny.
The biotechnology is more simple, which raises fewer questions than the film's version of the same device.
And the script's ending??? "What are you doing tomorrow?"
Removing that from the film was a top 10 anime betrayals choice.
Which film should I compare to its screenplay next?
Let me know in the comments!
You had more to say than this movie did 😂
I hated this movie just as much as you. Can you compare an old classic movie to its script?
me when you say we'll get back to this but you never do