One Day

Synopsis: Dorky Emma Morley (Anne Hathaway) and superficial Dexter Mayhew (Jim Sturgess) graduate from a northern British university on 15 July, 1989. they almost end up spending the night together, but, in a rare fit of maturity for each of them, they choose friendship over lust. Over ensuing years they meet up on 15 July again, sometimes rejecting each other, sometimes growing closer together. Twenty years on, the significance of graduation night comes to light.

At the start of One Day Anne Hathaway's Emma Morley is a clodhopper-wearing idealist with little self-confidence who makes ill-clad Andy at the start of The Devil Wears Prada (2006) look like a fashion plate.  In perfect contrast to Emma is the smooth Dexter, a public school boy with money, style and self-assurance to burn.  It is a meeting of opposites, a classic setup for dramatic conflict and could have become a whip-smart Taming of the Shrew or a tear-jerker like Love Story (1970). Instead, we have a subtle tale of maturation, albeit one which takes a long time to tell.

Director Lone Sherfig who brought us An Education (2009), an insightful story of the hard lessons life can teach, here brings us a pair of clever, but unformed individuals, and examines how they grow over time. The casting is good; Hathaway does a fine turn as the ugly duckling who turns into a swan, while Sturgess, usually cast as an innocent, does rather well as an adorable cad, who slides into the superficial world of schlock television. Providing good support are the fabulous Patricia Clarkson (as Dexter’s mother), Ken Stott (as Dexter’s father) and an ironically unfunny Rafe Spall, as Emma’s sometime boyfriend and stand-up comedian.

One Day has a number of appealing settings, nicely shot, including, Edinburgh, London and Paris, reflecting the romantic nature of the film. The costume department has also done a great job, particularly with Emma’s later costumes. Another noteworthy job has been done by the makeup department, who reflect Dexter’s decline in health via subtle changes in his facial features.

Sherfig's film, unfortunately, is let down by the underlying structure, and in particular, the choice of the key moments, which are meant to define the main characters’ lives. The film as a whole feels episodic, a faithful point-by-point reconstruction of the book, rather than a true adaptation of its themes and ideas. It thus ends up being a too-long reflection of how, basically, it takes 20 years for two people to grow up. While the actors are handsome to look at, and work hard with what they have, there is simply not enough meat on the bones of the story to make the characters utterly fascinating.

One Day is certainly good to look at, and there are some lovely moments, mostly stolen from the leads by Clarkson and Spall, and the script by David Nicholls from his own book, has some some witty lines. But there is not enough to keep us fully engaged as a film audience for nearly two hours, unlike the book, which was an international bestseller.  One Day is a visually attractive chick flick, a good choice for a girls’ night out.

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