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One Day

One Day: A Better Romance Than Most

  • Anne HathawayJim Sturgess...
  • DramaRomance
  • Lone Scherfig
reviewed by
Yasmin Shehab
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One Day: A Better Romance Than Most

You know how a few years ago, you’d be hard pressed to find a girl who
hadn’t seen The Notebook? Well, One Day could possibly take up that
mantle, if the amount of females and young couples spotted at the cinema is any
indication.

Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Sturgess) get to know each other on July 15th,
1988; the day of their college graduation. From that point onwards, they begin a
complicated friendship spanning 20 years. One
Day
visits them on the same day every year as the characters grow up, grow
apart, reunite and struggle with their feelings for each other.

Anne Hathaway’s British accent is really distracting, which is such a
shame because she does such a good job otherwise. Her charm makes you cairorevamp_user for
her character so badly. Emma needs a best friend to tell her that she deserves
someone so much better than Dexter. She’s talented, adorably awkward and nice.
She deserves someone that will make her feel good about herself; not someone
that only remembers her when he needs a person to whine to.

Emma is a classic example of a woman who has everything going for her
yet is completely lacking in confidence and self-esteem, which, in effect,
nullifies everything else. It’s painful to see how earnest and unsure she is of
herself. There comes a point when she’s penned a successful children’s book and is
living in France with her musician boyfriend while looking like Audrey Hepburn,
when you find yourself wishing the film would end right there, without any
interference from Dexter, so she’d get to live the dream.

Now this isn’t to say that Dexter is completely loathsome; because he
isn’t and this is why casting an actor as disarming as Sturgess was absolutely
necessary. On paper, Dexter is not the nicest guy and he could have easily come
off as completely self-absorbed and thoroughly reprehensible, yet as portrayed
by Sturgess, the audience begrudgingly begins to see why Emma’s unable to get
over him. He’s confident, charming and, unlike Emma, success comes easily to
him.

The transitions between the years are handled deftly and for the most
part, the actors look reasonably convincing playing a twenty-year age range.
That being said, Sturgess’s makeup made him completely unconvincing as a
40-year-old; instead, he looked like a twenty-something-year-old with really
fake grey hair.

This is a gorgeously shot film filled with cute dresses, adorable
haircuts and Parisian caf
és. It ultimately works, despite some dodgy dialogue
and characters, due to its thoroughly charming cast. For fans of melodramatic
romances, One Day is a perfect fit. 

Like This? Try

The Notebook, An Education, Dear John

360 Tip

One day is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name. Contrary to most book-to-film adaptations, author David Nicholls also penned the script.

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