One Day

I have to admit straight away that I loved David Nicholls book ‘One Day’ and so can’t review its film adaptation from an unbiased view. However, due to the number of commuters I have seen read it, as well as the fact it sold over 83,050 books in the UK in just one week, I feel I am talking to a large proportion of potential movie-goers. In all honesty I was expecting ‘One Day’ to fall into the age old trap of losing its magic when transferred to the big screen, much like ‘Time Traveller’s Wife’ did, but I was still disappointed at how it turned out considering David Nicholls himself helped adapt the script.

‘One Day’ has the unique premise of following two characters, Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) over twenty years, but only focusing on one specific day, July 15^th, also know as St. Swithin’s Day. We are shown a patchwork of both their lives as they intersect one another with enjoyable references to age defining fashions and technology. Due to this premise ‘One Day’ only has two central characters and with such a concept it is vitally important to get the perfect cast. In this aspect it unfortunately missed the mark, in one case at least. It is true that there are peripheral characters that appear in both Emma and Dexter’s lives that have been perfectly cast (Patricia Clarkson and Rafe Spall come to mind), but either Emma or Dexter are in every scene it is so important to choose the right people and the suits at Film Four sadly didn’t.

I feel bad for jumping on the ‘Anne Hathaway is too pretty’ bandwagon since she has played a plain Jane before very successfully in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ and could have altered the role a bit to make it her own. Unfortunately in the end Hathaway tried her best to bring to life the Emma readers knew, but it lacked the magic of Nicholls’ original writing. Her accent was all over the place ranging from cut glass clear to strongly northern and never quite settling down. She also lacked the contrasting mixture of high ambitions and strong cynicism that made Emma’s thoughts a delight to plunder and allowed Emma to pull off her sharp wit. Because of this many of her put downs and observations fell flat as often as they soured leaving Emma less of the independent, strong female character and more pedestrian.

Where Anne Hathaway failed to lift Emma off the page, Jim Sturgess was great at breathing life into Dexter. Somewhat of an unknown actor, which may be the reason Anne Hathaway needed to be brought in, Sturgess appears to be an actor who avoids the limelight. After being in films such ‘The Other Boleyn Girl’ and ‘21’ Sturgess will go back into the shadows, which couldn’t be further away from Dexter who clings on to the spot light for a little bit too long. Although it seems Dexter is a far cry away from his on-screen character, Sturgess easily pulls off his arrogance and playboy charm while his character goes through the biggest ups and downs of the film. Both Sturgess and Hathaway are overall very likable and manage to  show clearly the when their characters say one thing, but mean another, but something about them ultimately feels about one dimensional and so you invest little in their trials and successes.

The final person requiring a mention was not in front of the camera, but behind it. David Nicholls both wrote the book and adapted the screenplay and he likely felt the pressure so maybe the mistakes he made are understandable. To his credit he did make some good calls and kept in many of the funnier lines from the book, which went some way in catching some of its original charm- for example Emma’s put down ‘What rhymes with Dexter…Prick. It’s a half rhyme’.  He also sensibly removes some of the less important or less loved characters in order to try and cut down the 448-page book into about two hours. However, his reduction of the book lost a lot more than just a few characters, it also removed a lot of the subtlety that added details and depths to both Dexter and Emma and to their relationship. A lot of the days felt a little too short and seemed only to be included because they helped follow the premise of one day over twenty years. It seems Nicholls was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. By taking too much out he lost some of the charm, but also by trying to make the film faithfully follow the book it became a half arsed project. Ultimately the book could possibly be called unfilmable, at least using present methods, because without the added insight into both Emma’s and Dexter’s minds their relationship with each other and the audience lacks the involving quality it does in the book.

In the end I have to admit that I am biased since I read the book before I saw the film. My sometimes contributor, Will Tooke has not read the book and said he enjoyed the film, so maybe he is a better judge.  However, in my opinion, if you have read the book then maybe not bother with the film as you will be disappointed and if you are tempted to watch the film then buy the book instead.

Degree-3rd

The film simply doesn’t live up to what the book

created and this is truly a real shame.

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