Will Gluck
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Connections, in both directions
The result resembles The Purge by way of Before Sunrise, with just enough satirical bite to sharpen the comedy without overwhelming the romance.
So, One Night Only is both a boy-meets-girl romantic comedy and a dystopian movie, as if Anyone But You was set in the world of The Purge.
Think The Purge, but sex instead of murder.
Essentially, this is The Purge, but for sex, so don’t think too much about it.
Think of “One Night Only” as “The Purge” with hormones instead of homicides.
One Night Only has a premise quite similar to The Purge. Premarital sex is banned in the country, but people are allowed to break the ban for just 12 hours once a year.
The film is also (very loosely) based on "The Scarlet Letter," which winds up being less an inspiration for the plot and more a source for one of the film's funniest gags wherein various characters mockingly refer to the 1995 adaptation of the novel starring Demi Moore.
But this is, after all, a high school flick inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," so even though I didn't really buy the words coming out of the mouth of a precocious 17-year-old, I still enjoyed knowing somebody uttered them.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter inspires the high-school comedy Easy A, in which Olive (Emma Stone) finds herself excoriated by the entire student body when word mistakenly gets out that she is the campus harlot.
Here he adolescentizes The Scarlet Letter; the title refers to the stigmatic A for Adultery worn by Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne.
The reference, of course, is Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," which she's reading in a class taught by the school's coolest teacher (Thomas Haden Church, in perfect casting).
Not only does it contain various literary references to Sylvia Plath, Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne (whose novel The Scarlet Letter forms the basis of Easy A ) but it also mentions Judy Blume, Say Anything… and all of John Hughes’s films.
About ten to fifteen years ago, there was a spurt of teen films based on classics from Jane Austen's "Emma" in "Clueless" to Shakespeare in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "O." "Easy A" updates the convention with referential homage to the films of John Hughes and John Cusack's iconic "Say Anything" boom box scene, both of which are merged in the film's climax.
Chivalry and decency are repeatedly valued and this nostalgic longing hearkens back to plenty of ‘80s teen comedies in the same vein, including Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Say Anything... Olive even name-checks John Hughes directly.
Royal and director Will Gluck strike comic gold when paying homage to iconic scenes in teen movies, especially that wonderfully sappy bit from “Say Anything” with Penn Badgley (“Gossip Girl”) subbing handsomely for a boombox-lifting John Cusack.
It’s obvious he has a thing for John Hughes/Cameron Crowe ’80s teen comedies (which Olive makes reference to at one point) – and why wouldn’t he? Sixteen Candles and Say Anything are some of the genre’s classics.
Easy A brings to mind Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Can’t Buy Me Love and Say Anything.
Hughes’ classics are referenced frequently; music – even a clip – from ”The Breakfast Club” plays) as well as other seminal 80s teen films (”Cant Buy Me Love”, ”Say Anything”), ”Easy A” is a light but nicely crafted comedy about a young girl who (Similarly to Ronald Miller in ”Cant Buy Me Love”) lies her ass off to be popular.
About ten to fifteen years ago, there was a spurt of teen films based on classics from Jane Austen's "Emma" in "Clueless" to Shakespeare in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "O." "Easy A" updates the convention with referential homage to the films of John Hughes and John Cusack's iconic "Say Anything" boom box scene, both of which are merged in the film's climax.
As far as teen comedies informed by 10th-grade English syllabi go, Easy A , partly inspired by The Scarlet Letter, is remedial ed compared with Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You .
In fact, this film (specifically because of Stone’s performance) is very reminding of Alicia Silverstone’s run as Cher in 1995?s Clueless.
We all recall the wit and charm of Amy Heckerling 's 1995 " Clueless ," which seamlessly and gracefully grafted the plot of Jane Austen's "Emma" to a contemporary Valley Girl comedy of manners and mores.
"Easy A" borrows copiously from the John Hughes catalog, and draws favorable comparisons to some of the smarter teen fare from the past few decades, including "Saved," "Juno," "Mean Girls" and "Clueless."
While it's tempting to compare "Easy A" with "Clueless," there are more differences than similarities.
It’s a loose-fitting tribute to say the least, considering how Royal doesn’t actually understand what he’s referencing (pointing out Ferris Bueller’s parade-hijacking burst of joy as a “random dance number,” and proclaiming Bender’s triumphant fist pump at the climax of “The Breakfast Club” as a celebration of his romantic conquest).
Chivalry and decency are repeatedly valued and this nostalgic longing hearkens back to plenty of ‘80s teen comedies in the same vein, including Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Say Anything... Olive even name-checks John Hughes directly.
Hughes’ classics are referenced frequently; music – even a clip – from ”The Breakfast Club” plays) as well as other seminal 80s teen films (”Cant Buy Me Love”, ”Say Anything”), ”Easy A” is a light but nicely crafted comedy about a young girl who (Similarly to Ronald Miller in ”Cant Buy Me Love”) lies her ass off to be popular.
It implies that it's putting an Internet-age spin on the old standards by explicitly referencing teen-movie landmarks like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Say Anything — and by "explicitly referencing," I mean it actually splices shots from those movies into the proceedings, a bid for reflexivity that screenwriter Bert V. Royal and director Will Gluck lack the chops to support.
With films like The Breakfast Club , Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off , Hughes tapped into the inherent drama of high school with comedy and warmth.
But after a single viewing of the smartly written and directed Easy A, I feel safe in saying that, just as with 16 Candles , The Breakfast Club, and Ferris Bueller, it's a movie I know I'll be unable to resist watching whenever it pops up on cable TV - no matter how many times I've seen it.
Chivalry and decency are repeatedly valued and this nostalgic longing hearkens back to plenty of ‘80s teen comedies in the same vein, including Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Say Anything... Olive even name-checks John Hughes directly.
It’s obvious he has a thing for John Hughes/Cameron Crowe ’80s teen comedies (which Olive makes reference to at one point) – and why wouldn’t he? Sixteen Candles and Say Anything are some of the genre’s classics.
It implies that it's putting an Internet-age spin on the old standards by explicitly referencing teen-movie landmarks like Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Say Anything — and by "explicitly referencing," I mean it actually splices shots from those movies into the proceedings, a bid for reflexivity that screenwriter Bert V. Royal and director Will Gluck lack the chops to support.
“Easy A’’ has a major crush on ’80s teen movies, so Todd’s basically Michael Schoeffling in “Sixteen Candles’’ until he turns into John Cusack in “Say Anything.’’
Her engaging web-caster Olive Penderghast represents a spunky amalgam of girl power on film, showing hints of the depressed and dateless Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald in “Sixteen Candles”), the wannabe-popular Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan in “Mean Girls”) and the sarcastic-but-knowing Juno (Ellen Page).
With films like The Breakfast Club , Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off , Hughes tapped into the inherent drama of high school with comedy and warmth.
Olive's psyche for the nicer romance side has been formed by '80s teen cinema for which we get a montage of classic moments from Say Anything, Sixteen Candles and from the much-much-much-lesser classic, Can't Buy Me Love, to drive home the film's concept.
Say Anything and Can't Buy Me Love are explicitly referenced, but they're not the only examples.
A major step up for director Will Gluck, who previously helmed 2009's smarmy " Fired Up! ," "Easy A" is nothing short of a love letter to the late, great John Hughes; there are references mischievously sprinkled throughout ("Never had one lesson," Olive replies to her father when he catches her strumming a guitar in her bedroom), choice soundtrack recollections (The Thompson Twins' "If You Were Here," beautifully covered by The Cary Brothers, and Simple Minds' "Don't You Forget About Me" both play pivotal roles), and even a montage of scenes from classic teen flicks encompassing not only Hughes, but also 1987's "Can't Buy Me Love" and 1989's "Say Anything."
About ten to fifteen years ago, there was a spurt of teen films based on classics from Jane Austen's "Emma" in "Clueless" to Shakespeare in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "O." "Easy A" updates the convention with referential homage to the films of John Hughes and John Cusack's iconic "Say Anything" boom box scene, both of which are merged in the film's climax.
We all recall the wit and charm of Amy Heckerling 's 1995 " Clueless ," which seamlessly and gracefully grafted the plot of Jane Austen's "Emma" to a contemporary Valley Girl comedy of manners and mores.
But, while "Clueless" follows the plot of Jane Austen's "Emma" point for point, "Easy A's" connection to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is mostly in Stone's head, as she relates to the ostracized Hester Prynne.
The great Emma Stone (Superbad, Zombieland) stars as Olive, who narrates almost all of Easy A as a confessional webcast about a tumultuous time in her high school career.
Remember Clueless, which updated Jane Austen's Emma and made Alicia Silverstone the girl of the month?
Like Clueless, which mined Jane Austen’s “Emma” for material, Easy A is a play off of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter,” about a woman who is publicly shamed into wearing a mark to denote her sexual transgressions.
Like Clueless, which mined Jane Austen’s “Emma” for material, Easy A is a play off of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter,” about a woman who is publicly shamed into wearing a mark to denote her sexual transgressions.
We all recall the wit and charm of Amy Heckerling 's 1995 " Clueless ," which seamlessly and gracefully grafted the plot of Jane Austen's "Emma" to a contemporary Valley Girl comedy of manners and mores.
Remember Clueless, which updated Jane Austen's Emma and made Alicia Silverstone the girl of the month?
About ten to fifteen years ago, there was a spurt of teen films based on classics from Jane Austen's "Emma" in "Clueless" to Shakespeare in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "O." "Easy A" updates the convention with referential homage to the films of John Hughes and John Cusack's iconic "Say Anything" boom box scene, both of which are merged in the film's climax.
If you bemoan the fact that there hasn’t been a fresh, original and funny high school comedy in a long time, get thee to “Easy A,” which updates Hester Prynne’s dilemma in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” in somewhat the same way Amy Heckerling’s “Clueless” revised Jane Austen’s “Emma” 15 years ago.
But, while "Clueless" follows the plot of Jane Austen's "Emma" point for point, "Easy A's" connection to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is mostly in Stone's head, as she relates to the ostracized Hester Prynne.
He's akin to Joe Pesci from Home Alone with a nitpicky brain.
What develops rests somewhere between Byrne’s Neighbors movies and the Home Alone movies: a community competition with nasty slapstick battles: since he gets to be both Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern, Gleeson takes the full brunt of hurled projectiles and electrified doorknobs.
This ought not to have raised an eyebrow in a movie that owes as much to Home Alone as it does to Beatrix Potter’s best-known creation.
Filled with cartoon-style comic violence – some of which is downright nasty (an electrocution and a fight that leads to a controversial allergy attack among them – see notes below) – this lacks the charm of children’s book adaptations like Paddington and Babe and instead feels more like a furry version of Home Alone .
Peter Rabbit is structured like the third act of Home Alone, with Gleeson standing in for the burglars, and Peter Rabbit and his coterie of animated animals in the Macaulay Culkin role, and the two sides clashing largely with sophisticated booby traps.
The slapstick humor is akin to Home Alone levels of violence, which seems out of place for the age group that’s coming to see a talking rabbit.
About ten to fifteen years ago, there was a spurt of teen films based on classics from Jane Austen's "Emma" in "Clueless" to Shakespeare in "10 Things I Hate About You" and "O." "Easy A" updates the convention with referential homage to the films of John Hughes and John Cusack's iconic "Say Anything" boom box scene, both of which are merged in the film's climax.
As far as teen comedies informed by 10th-grade English syllabi go, Easy A , partly inspired by The Scarlet Letter, is remedial ed compared with Clueless and 10 Things I Hate About You .
Royal sprinkles his screenplay with snappy cultural references that aren't exactly pop; it's one thing to be inspired by Shakespeare like 10 Things I Hate About You, and entirely another to mine laughs from Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dr. Kinsey and Huckleberry Finn.
"Easy A" is pretty much destined to join "Superbad," "Mean Girls," and, looking a bit further back, "10 Things I Hate About You," as a modern teen movie classic.
The movie wisely addresses its fondness for John Hughes and his likeminded teen comedy peers up front (it even contains covers of seminal “John Hughes songs” on its soundtrack), though the spirits of “Clueless” (narration), “10 Things I Hate About You” (source material) and “ Juno ” (smart, plucky heroine) are present as well.
2000's " 10 Things I Hate About You " credibly transplanted Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" to high school and introduced audiences to the winning ways of Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles .
There hasn’t been a teen film worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as John Hughes’ classic coming of age movies since 2010’s Easy A…that is, until 2015’s The DUFF.
The DUFF, adapted from Kody Keplinger’s 2011 YA novel of the same name, proceeds along the same broad path as countless high-school comedies before it—the echoes of Easy A and Mean Girls in particular are audible throughout the film—without a lot to distinguish it besides its title and a hyperactive, vlogger-influenced visual style that marks it as an artifact of the mid-2010s as strongly as its social-media obsession does.
While you wouldn’t put it in the same class as the similarly-themed (and still superb) Mean Girls - or even the under-rated Easy A - this film has its heart in the right place, and a strong cast that covers for most weaknesses.
While it's neither as biting as "Mean Girls" nor as sweetly referential as "Easy A," the earnest and sometimes amusing "The DUFF" is a fine addition to the canon.
Like Emma Stone’s Olive Penderghast in Easy A (a film to which The DUFF owes some major credit), Bianca is a movie character aware of movie characters.
What works, though, we’ve seen before, and fairly recently in Emma Stone’s Easy A , from which Ari Sendel’s film cribs more than a few scenes.
TALKING: Whether it’s a nod, homage or stealing, Easy A takes some material from past 80’s glory like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
With films like The Breakfast Club , Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller's Day Off , Hughes tapped into the inherent drama of high school with comedy and warmth.
“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” “Ten Things I Hate About You.” “Mean Girls.”
Running throughout the pleasant-surprise teen comedy "Easy A" is a rib-tickling little gag whereby various characters quote memorable lines from quintessentially 1980s teen movies, from Hughes' "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" to "The Outsiders" to " Say Anything ."
"Easy A" borrows copiously from the John Hughes catalog, and draws favorable comparisons to some of the smarter teen fare from the past few decades, including "Saved," "Juno," "Mean Girls" and "Clueless."
The Bible-thumpers are there to create conflict (and to provide a parallel to Hester Prynne's travails), but secular teenage girls can be quite viciously judgmental all by themselves, as Mean Girls proved.
In the contracted algebra of marketing speak, scribe Bert V. Royal has penned a script that references (both directly and indirectly) elements of Clueless, Mean Girls and the entire oeuvre of John Hughes.
Her engaging web-caster Olive Penderghast represents a spunky amalgam of girl power on film, showing hints of the depressed and dateless Samantha Baker (Molly Ringwald in “Sixteen Candles”), the wannabe-popular Cady Heron (Lindsay Lohan in “Mean Girls”) and the sarcastic-but-knowing Juno (Ellen Page).
This isn't just some pandering cinematic throwaway narrowly targeting the high school crowd, but, like 1995's "Clueless" and 2004's " Mean Girls ," strong enough to become a lasting, defining motion picture of its respective era.
And, of course, 2004's " Mean Girls " gave us a glimpse of what an engaging comedian Lindsay Lohan could be, while riffing on the classic sociological study "Queen Bees and Wannabees."
He keeps the pace flowing as he emulates AFTER HOURS (boy, that movie is so influential)…
Equal parts aw-shucks, sincerity and swagger, Turner clicks with Barbaro as their “After Hours”-style adventures (without the edge of the Martin Scorsese NYC classic) keep them in one another’s orbit.
…this film from rom-com guru Will Gluck (Anyone But You, Easy A, Friends With Benefits) has created something more akin to After Hours, which similarly was a series of mishaps during one long night in NYC. Not nearly as dark as that Scorsese gem, One Night Only, despite its unique premise, follows the template of the romantic comedy genre in predictable fashion.
At times, it almost feels like a romcom version of After Hours (1985), with one chaotic circumstance leading to another.
American Pie (1999)
Directed by Paul Weitz
influenced Fired Up! (2009), One Night Only (2026), Easy A (2010)
Plot Characters Themes
For people my age, American Pie featured a couple who opt not to have sex prom night after an entire film about having sex on prom night. And their relationship is the only non-comedic intact one when credits roll.
High Points: It’s surprisingly funny for another weak American Pie rip-off; Nicholas D'Agosto and Eric Christian Olsen make a hilarious pair; If you're under the age of 25 you’ll like it.
That counts as one of the better moments in this sloppy but moderately amusing attempt to cross the 2000 Kirsten Dunst hit with the raunchier brand of teen comedy that came in the wake of American Pie.
John Michael Higgins plays the idiot adult character (see Eugene Levy in the American Pie films) and Philip Baker Hall is on hand to say the "sh--" word as often as possible without ruining the rating.
Every decade or so we get a new, all-out, dirty-joke comedy about randy teenagers -- "Porky's," "American Pie," "Superbad."
It sounds like that the kind of thing that would have been right at home with the teen comedies of twenty years ago, or even the brief "American Pie"-ish revival.
The problem with One Night Only’s gonzo premise is that screenwriter Travis Braun has essentially created a version of the United States that has a lot more in common with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale than a rom com should.
On paper, it’s the set-up for a grim Handmaid’s Tale–adjacent horror of a totalitarian state insisting extreme control over the body…
…a repressive, "Handmaid's Tale" lite version of Congress…
It Happened One Night (1934)
Directed by Frank Capra
influenced Friends with Benefits (2011), One Night Only (2026)
Plot Themes
In more liberated times, it’s gotten tougher to keep the walls of Jericho (like in “It Happened One Night”) upright.
Not only are their references to real life romantic films – such as the poster for “It Happened One Night” that hangs over her bed – but there’s a running gag about a made-up film that’s is one of her favorites which runs to the very end of the movie.
Preston Sturges this is not, nor Frank Capra (a poster for "It Happened One Night" hangs over Jamie's bed), nor even Judd Apatow, whose "Knocked Up" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" much more successfully merged sweetness and saltiness.
In one scene, director Will Gluck (Easy A) shows a television playing the 1969 Paul Mazursky couples-swapping comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
In fact, the pervasiveness of this idea in non-controversy-courting movies aimed at the mainstream multiplex may be a relatively recent development, but "Friends with Benefits" acknowledges its place as a Justin-come-lately in the history of sex-in-the-cinema by placing "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" (1969) on a television screen in the background of one scene.
As with “Easy A,” “Friends With Benefits” is a thinly-veiled showcase of Sony electronic and entertainment products: Sony VAIO laptops, Columbia Pictures’ “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice” playing on a Sony flat-screen and Kris Kross’s “Jump” courtesy of Columbia Records blasting out of a Sony Ericsson phone.
Old movies like On the Waterfront and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice play on screens in the background.
Materialists (2025)
Directed by Celine Song
influenced Anyone but You (2023), One Night Only (2026)
Themes
While the film focuses on a very specific perspective and experience (straight and unmarried), it does at times nail how marriage can feel like a proposition of convenience, not unlike something from a Jane Austen novel or Celine Song’s last film, Materialists.
Except for the Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell romcom, Anyone But You, and the Jennifer Lawrence star vehicle, No Hard Feelings, the 2020s have been a relatively dire decade for theatrically released romcoms.
Yet the rom-com has been making a comeback as of late, thanks in large part to box office successes like "Anyone But You" as well as genre mashups like this year's "Heart Eyes."
Anyone But You and Babygirl were mere starters, just hearty enough to whet one’s appetite without spoiling dinner.