One Day
Rating: 4/10
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Rafe Spall, Ken Stott, Patricia Clarkson
Director: Lone Scherfig
Based on a tremendously well received book, One Day stars Anne Hathaway as Emma Morley, and Jim Sturgess as Dexter Mayhew.
The pair have just graduated from Edinburgh on July 15th, 1988 and very nearly fall into bed together.
However, they don't quite make it and thus begins a 20 year friendship, charted on screen by following the pair every year on July 15th to find out where they are.
Emma is an idealist; a wannabe writer and working class girl who always seems thwarted in her attempts to achieve greater things, ending up in a relationship with Rafe Spall's terribly dull stand up comic, Ian.
Dex, meanwhile, seems to have it all - a TV career fronting a music show and women, booze and drugs on tap. But unsurprisingly, he's a mess.
Can the pair realise what they truly need has been under their noses for the past 20 years?
One Day is pure romantic fluff drama; some will swoon and fawn over it and others will absolutely hate it.
While the recreation of the relevant decades is brilliantly realised - right down to the music choices which evoke the era within seconds of you hearing them in the background, the main plot device (jumping a year) starts to grate very quickly.
The trouble is that the central conceit makes each visit feel a little like a disjointed vignette and it's hard to really engage with or care about the characters.
Sturgess and Hathaway have little chemistry together - and while Hathaway's attempt at a Northern English accent isn't as bad as you may have read, she certainly doesn't impress as much as perhaps she might. There's some disarming charm in the dialogue and some good one liners but to be honest, you can see where this film is going from the beginning.
Ultimately, One Day is a little polarising; some will adore the
true love storyline and tearjerking moments whereas others will
simply roll their eyes and wait for it to end.
