One Day

I love a good romance film, not necessarily a romantic-comedy (I'm not a great fan of most of what passes for comedy at the moment). One of my favourite films is Big Fish which is, amongst other things, a great romance. The trailers for One Day looked promising and although I've not read the book that it is based on, I am reliably informed that it is one worth reading. I loved Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada although not so much in Bride Wars and I thought that Jim Sturgess was great in The Way Back.

The story takes place over 20 years from when Emma (Hathaway) gets together with Dexter (Sturgess) on their university graduation night in Edinburgh. The date they met is 15th of July (St Swithin's Day) and the film focuses on each 15th of July for the next 20 years.

The film charts the various ups and downs of Emma and Dexter's lives and how their relationship changes as they do. Emma starts the film being a waitress in a Tex-Mex restaurant, whereas Dexter becomes a successful TV presenter. As the film progress, Emma becomes a teacher and then fulfils her dream of becoming a writer, while Dexter's career falls apart as he becomes addicted to alcohol, drugs and women.

They both have relationships throughout the film, Emma with comedian Ian and Dexter with Sylvie, but there is something that keeps bringing them back to each other (at least as friends) until they finally decide that they should be together.

There are problems with this film; the first being the character of Emma. Who is she? Where does she come from? What does she want? Why on earth does she like Dexter? We are told that she is intelligent and attractive in a 'normal' kind of way, but if she was so intelligent, then she would know that someone like Dexter is no good for her. I appreciate that love is blind, but this is ridiculous.

I'm not going to harp on about Hathaway's accent as some reviewers have, being a profoundly deaf person, it's not such a big deal for me, but I think consistency seems to be the issue.

Then we move on to Dexter; such an unlikeable character in the beginning, and barely redeems himself towards the end of the film, but it was incredibly difficult to see why he was so attractive to Emma and others. 

The film has no real passion or intensity, there were only two episodes in the film where I saw something vaguely bordering on emotion, both involving Dexter and his parents and both were played very well by Sturgess. However the film was devoid of any depth or connection. I had no empathy or engagement with the characters and if you've read the book, you know that it isn't a fairytale and even at that 'moment', I simply didn't care.

I also found myself cringing each time Emma's boyfriend Ian was on screen, because he kept reminding me of Lou, a character from Little Britain played by David Walliams and I just couldn't let that go.

Verdict: You can see that this really had the potential to be a great romantic film, and I'm not sure where the fault lies. Sturgess was good as Dexter, but Hathaway is wildly mis-cast as Emma. The production was good and there were no lulls in the film, but I found it a bit irritating and I simply didn't care about any of the characters.