One Day
Regal Union Square, August 26, 2011
Movie #64 for 2011
Some films transcend the hooks that make them neat to pitch. Others, like One Day, just get all gimmicky.
Dexter (JIM STURGESS, Across the Universe, 21) and Emma (ANNE HATHAWAY, Love and Other Drugs, pictured with Sturgess) spend an awkward night together in the late 1980s - their graduation night from university. The film then checks in with them on the same day for the next two decades as they grow as people, make choices, miss opportunities and eventually, as they must, get their shit together.
In a rare fit of Idon’tknowwhat, I did actually read the book One Day a couple of years ago along with the rest of the known world. It was fine, nothing amazing, but it did a neat job of using literary tricks to overcome the gimmick. The film, however, is hamstrung by its filmness. There wasn’t going to be a good way to do it - either use voice over for internal monologue (which, thank goodness they didn’t), or truly base the film on one day a year and risk your ability to build any meaningful character development (which, unfortunately is exactly what they did) - which makes me wonder why they bothered trying at all.
The film is a thin-feeling story that takes quite a while to arrive at the inevitable. If I didn’t know that Hathaway and Sturgess - and director LONE SCHERFIG (An Education) - had done quality work before, I’d say they were going nowhere fast. Sturgess in particular forgets the ‘charming’ part of his ‘charming, yet self-obsessed’ character, which is not what you want from a leading man in romantic drama, and Hathaway can’t sell the story on her own.
One Day is wholly gimmick, and it’s wholly unsatisfying.
