One Night Only is being described as The Purge, but for sex. However, that description doesn’t tell the whole story, as director Will Gluck cut out a considerable amount of nudity from the film. He explained his decision during a Variety interview.
Gluck’s decision to remove certain scenes came after he and his team noticed that audiences, particularly younger generations, have become less comfortable with sex and nudity on the big screen. He said that now nudity is “more of a private, intimate thing that people don’t want to see when they’re in a shared experience. Whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable.“
When asked about how he changed his approach in light of this new information, Gluck responded that initially there was much more nudity in the film because he and his team felt that they needed “to show the world that way,” but during test screenings Gluck noticed that all the nudity and sex was making audiences uncomfortable.
He also added that audiences were “engaged in the characters and what’s going on, and then you pan over and there’s two naked people having sex,” which was taking the viewers “out of the movie.” To address that Gluck and his team “kept editing” out nude scenes until they “got a balance.”
One Night Only is set in a world where premarital sex is illegal aside from one night a year when it is allowed. The story follows Allie, an aspiring singer, and Owen, a pizza shop owner who keeps running into each other during the night as everyone who isn’t married in New York City is trying to find the person they can have sex with.
The nudity isn’t the only talking point about One Night Only as the world in which the film takes place in has become somewhat confusing for the audience and in response of that Gluck said that “you can’t really describe this movie,” adding that there are many instances when the cast of the film “goes on talk shows and spends 80% of the time explaining the rules of the world, and that’s not what the movie is about.”
One Night Only stars Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner in the lead roles of Allie and Owen, with Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Maya Hawke, Julia Fox, Charlie Gillespie, and Michelle Hurd starring in supporting roles.
Will Gluck’s One Night Only is currently playing in theaters