Equal parts George Orwell and unrestrained teenage hormones, director Will Gluck’s One Night Only imagines a dystopian America where a religious administration has banned premarital sex. The preposterous prohibition is enforced through biometric sensors that detect certain hormonal spikes and summon SWAT teams to thwart your carnal endeavors.

The only caveat to this prudish regime, like some raunchy remake of 2013’s The Purge, is a single day of the year when the unwed are permitted to copulate: “one night only,” hence the title of the film. From this absurd premise, Gluck fashions a surprisingly sweet romantic comedy about two people searching for meaning in intimacy amid a culture that increasingly reduces affection to hedonistic pursuit.

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