Take one part Same Time Next Year, one part Love Story, add naff accents and obvious anachronisms and you have Lone Scherfig’s latest British romance, One Day. It’s hard not to be disappointed by this sprawling two-hander from Scherfig after the sublime Oscar-nominated An Education, but One Day’s disappointments come more in the form of being so wholly unremarkable in every way, never becoming the great romance that its literary backdrop and expansive timeline might have suggested.
Beginning in Edinburgh, 1988, One Day traces the romantic and anguished inter-connecting lives of Emma (Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess, Across the Universe) over the course of 20 years. However, unlike most films of this kind, One Day – based on David Nicholls’ award-winning book from 2009 – only visits these two clunking clichés on one specific day each year. Occasionally these vignettes strike a topic of wounding pathos or charming humour, but more often than not they veer towards asking questions that the film has no desire to answer. The most interesting moments in the lives of these two friends seemingly happen off screen, while they spend most of the specified day, 15 July, being blithely unaware that this one date seems to always correlate with a bittersweet anniversary or end in a big confrontation at an extravagant party.
Dexter (jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway)
As the two figurative lovebirds, Sturgess and Hathaway are an odd coupling. Sturgess does what he can with what is a rather unpleasant character (deliberately so, mind you, but hard to barrack for when he’s being a bastard to anyone he comes into contact with), but Hathaway is sadly weighed down by her character’s dowdy dullness and chucklesome She’s All That styled reinvention. That her wayward accent has more variations than Meryl Streep is only part of the problem.
Dexter and his mother Alison (Patricia Clarkson)
The first half of One Day is by far its weakest, as these characters dawdle about from one yearly event to another as they delay the inevitable. Filmed in ugly deep blue hues by the normally dependable cinematographer Benoît Delhomme, it’s hard to succumb to the necessary feelings one should have during a film like this. Obviously aiming for something deeper than the latest Kate Hudson vehicle, it never truly rises to the challenge. Peppered by references to popular songs and films (Corona’s 1994 pop classic “Rhythm of the Night” has been on frequent rotation since the screening) that are as comical as they are dunderheaded (how did nobody notice that Jurassic Park was released in 1993, not 1994?), Scherfig tries so hard to make One Day a generation-defining film, like the aforementioned Love Story, but instead comes off as uninvolving and stretched too thin.
One Day is released in Australia on September 1st
Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Jim Sturgess, Anne Hathaway, Patricia Clarkson, Romola Garai, Ken Stott,
Jodie Whitaker, Rafe Spall
