One Night Only Director Talks About The Movie's Soon-To-Be Iconic Final Location [Exclusive]
This article contains spoilers for "One Night Only."
How many romantic comedies have been set in New York City? How many tearful separations, sweeping romantic gestures, and grand reunions has the Big Apple hosted on screen? Suffice it to say, the answer is "a lot." But "One Night Only," the newest romantic comedy from "Anyone But You" director Will Gluck, does something many rom-coms fail to do: In addition to its high-concept premise involving two characters meeting on the only night each year in which two single people can legally have sex, this movie features a distinct real-world location that factors heavily into its plot.
Instead of meeting at the top of the Empire State Building (like rom-com royalty Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in "Sleepless in Seattle"), the end of the movie sees Owen (Callum Turner) realizing he can find Allie (Monica Barbaro) at a spot that means a lot to her: The Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge, which is the setting of her favorite children's book. I've seen a lot of New York-set romances, but I've never seen this location (or even heard of it), so when I interviewed Gluck, I had to ask him about enshrining it in the NYC rom-com canon.
"The Lighthouse means a lot to me, which is why I wrote that," Gluck explained. "I grew up very close to it. That book, 'Little Red Lighthouse,' is a real book that my parents read to me [...] No one on the crew knew it existed. And I've shot a few movies in New York City now, and I really liked shooting places that you haven't seen in other movies, which is why we do the whole Empire State Building fake-out. I love going to locations that have never been shot before [...] New York — living, breathing New York — is so much more than the tourist attractions."
One Night Only stays true to its rom-com roots, but also carves its own path
While there's something timeless about locations like the Empire State Building (even "Sleepless in Seattle" explores that building's importance throughout cinema history with its frequent references to the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr film "An Affair to Remember"), it's undoubtedly refreshing to see "One Night Only" stay true to the genre while also carving its own path by introducing the world to a new place. That decision is a microcosm of what I want from the whole genre: familiar but fresh.
Will Gluck explained what it was like to actually film at the Little Red Lighthouse:
"It was a bear to get not just permission to shoot in the lighthouse, but the reason why no one knows the lighthouse is because it's really hard to get to. You can only get there by walking on the path or biking. You can't drive to the lighthouse. So what does that mean [for] all the equipment? That's right. So it was a real tough job for us and all the crew to get all our equipment down there. In fact, at one point we thought it might've been easier to get in by boat. That was how hard it was. But I'm really happy it came out [...] it is an incredible location. When you're up there in the lighthouse, the bridge is above you and you have a straight-on shot of the skyline. It is magical up there. And I hope if this movie does anything, I hope people go up there."
With the location given such prominent placement in the film's climactic moments, I have to imagine that it'll become an immediate hotspot in the city. But if you're planning to check it out in person, just be prepared to go on a bit of a trek to get there.
"One Night Only" is in theaters now.