Director: Lone Scherfig
Writer: David Nicholls
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Anne Hathaway
Release Date: August 19, 2011
Length: 1 hour 47 minutes
Internationally bestselling author David Nichols of Starter for Ten and The Understudy, adapts his latest success, One Day, into a screenplay for the film adaptation, directed by Lone Scherfig (An Education). Remaining incredibly true to the novel, the film tells the lifetime story of Emma (played by Anne Hathaway), a bookish insecure girl from Yorkshire, who panics at not knowing where she is going in life, and Dexter (played by Jim Sturgess), a rich lazy playboy, who doesn’t really care where he is going. They meet on graduation night, both 22, in 1988 and after an awkward almost sexual encounter with each other, the pair remains friends as they get older.
The creative story revisits these characters on the same day of graduation, July 15, St. Swithin’s Day, for the next twenty years of their lives. We happily and sadly see these two people completely change, suffer loss and experience joy while they continually break apart and come together in friendship and romance. In reminiscence of Same Time Next Year, One Day evokes the same growingly sad plot where a three-minute scene represents an entire year for these aging characters. Nicholls adapts his novel perfectly onto screen, as he has much experience as a screenwriter for British films like And When Did You Last See Your Father?. One of the positive aspects of One Day is that the 450-page novel is beautifully condensed and altered into the 2-hour film, remaining faithful without distorting the general feel of the story.
Actors Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess play Nicholl’s characters Emma and Dexter interestingly. Hathaway’s Yorkshire accent was all over the place, going from Scottish, to English, to sometimes American and even a little Cockney. Nevertheless, her talented skills that we have seen in numerous films like Rachel Getting Married and Becoming Jane, shined through her dialect difficulties. Jim Sturgess, who we first fell in love with in Julie Taymor’s Beatles tribute, Across The Universe in 2007, gives quite a meaningful but sometimes over the top performance as the devilishly charming Dexter Mayhew. Maybe the exaggeration of his flirtation and histrionic personality was done purposefully to show the front he was putting on, covering a deeper person we see as he gets older when more tragedy strikes him. It was in those upsetting scenes, including some with his character’s ill mother (played by Patricia Clarkson), that Sturgess was the most believable and enthralled the audience the most. The older Dexter gets, the more likable and interesting he is to the audience as his personality goes through an entire changeover. He and Hathaway share a very strong chemistry that convincingly lasts the twenty years the film spans.
Here’s the kicker though. No matter how talented a cast, how skillful a director or screenwriter or how brilliant a novel, sometimes the plot just doesn’t work on screen and that is something the film simply can’t escape. Three years ago, one of my favourite novels The Time Travellers Wife was adapted to screen with a terrific cast and a well-adjusted script, but the plot of the book just didn’t work as a film. There is a similar situation with One Day: a beautifully written book whose premise took on an overplayed tone on screen.
Perhaps if the captions of what year it was did not come up for every scene, or the marketing for the film did not clue us in on the time span of twenty years, we could simply just see these characters grow over time and come to a shocking revelation that wow, it had been twenty years. With the scenes of each year being incredibly short, it is hard for you to just jump on board with letting these people carry the film when there has been almost no character development. We eventually start to care a bit for the characters but (without giving it away) by the horrific ending, we unfortunately don’t feel like we know these people well enough to buy into and truly feel bad for the tragic event. Like I said before, you couldn’t ask for a better script or director and the cast lead the story as best they could. But with One Day, you are left with a hard effort that doesn’t pay off.
Writer: David Nicholls
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Anne Hathaway
Release Date: August 19, 2011
Length: 1 hour 47 minutes
Internationally bestselling author David Nichols of Starter for Ten and The Understudy, adapts his latest success, One Day, into a screenplay for the film adaptation, directed by Lone Scherfig (An Education). Remaining incredibly true to the novel, the film tells the lifetime story of Emma (played by Anne Hathaway), a bookish insecure girl from Yorkshire, who panics at not knowing where she is going in life, and Dexter (played by Jim Sturgess), a rich lazy playboy, who doesn’t really care where he is going. They meet on graduation night, both 22, in 1988 and after an awkward almost sexual encounter with each other, the pair remains friends as they get older.
The creative story revisits these characters on the same day of graduation, July 15, St. Swithin’s Day, for the next twenty years of their lives. We happily and sadly see these two people completely change, suffer loss and experience joy while they continually break apart and come together in friendship and romance. In reminiscence of Same Time Next Year, One Day evokes the same growingly sad plot where a three-minute scene represents an entire year for these aging characters. Nicholls adapts his novel perfectly onto screen, as he has much experience as a screenwriter for British films like And When Did You Last See Your Father?. One of the positive aspects of One Day is that the 450-page novel is beautifully condensed and altered into the 2-hour film, remaining faithful without distorting the general feel of the story.
Actors Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess play Nicholl’s characters Emma and Dexter interestingly. Hathaway’s Yorkshire accent was all over the place, going from Scottish, to English, to sometimes American and even a little Cockney. Nevertheless, her talented skills that we have seen in numerous films like Rachel Getting Married and Becoming Jane, shined through her dialect difficulties. Jim Sturgess, who we first fell in love with in Julie Taymor’s Beatles tribute, Across The Universe in 2007, gives quite a meaningful but sometimes over the top performance as the devilishly charming Dexter Mayhew. Maybe the exaggeration of his flirtation and histrionic personality was done purposefully to show the front he was putting on, covering a deeper person we see as he gets older when more tragedy strikes him. It was in those upsetting scenes, including some with his character’s ill mother (played by Patricia Clarkson), that Sturgess was the most believable and enthralled the audience the most. The older Dexter gets, the more likable and interesting he is to the audience as his personality goes through an entire changeover. He and Hathaway share a very strong chemistry that convincingly lasts the twenty years the film spans.
Here’s the kicker though. No matter how talented a cast, how skillful a director or screenwriter or how brilliant a novel, sometimes the plot just doesn’t work on screen and that is something the film simply can’t escape. Three years ago, one of my favourite novels The Time Travellers Wife was adapted to screen with a terrific cast and a well-adjusted script, but the plot of the book just didn’t work as a film. There is a similar situation with One Day: a beautifully written book whose premise took on an overplayed tone on screen.
Perhaps if the captions of what year it was did not come up for every scene, or the marketing for the film did not clue us in on the time span of twenty years, we could simply just see these characters grow over time and come to a shocking revelation that wow, it had been twenty years. With the scenes of each year being incredibly short, it is hard for you to just jump on board with letting these people carry the film when there has been almost no character development. We eventually start to care a bit for the characters but (without giving it away) by the horrific ending, we unfortunately don’t feel like we know these people well enough to buy into and truly feel bad for the tragic event. Like I said before, you couldn’t ask for a better script or director and the cast lead the story as best they could. But with One Day, you are left with a hard effort that doesn’t pay off.
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