One Day

Well I have just got back from a girlie night at the cinema to see the eagarly awaited One Day. I had never heard of this best selling novel from David Nicholls first published back in 2009, when Miss G lent it to me for my holiday read. Sometimes the books you know nothing about are the ones that blow you away the most and I advise you to beg, borrow or steal a copy of this book, preferably before you see the movie because you will not be able to put it down. So as you can imagine we were extremely desperate to see the movie and had already booked our seats about two weeks ago. So what did I think? Read on..

Year: 2011
Writer: David Nicholls (screenplay and book)
Director: Lone Scherfig
Starring: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess, Patricia Clarkson, Romola Garai, Ken Stott and Rafe Spall.

Plot: St Swithin's Day 1988. Bookish Emma and raffish Dexter spend the night together on their last day at Edinburgh University. We subsequently pick up their friendship on various July 15s over the next 20 odd years, charting how their lives diverge and come together as they grow older.

It is often very difficult when you really love a book and fall in love with the characters to be able to enjoy the movie version. The reason for this being that while reading the book you have imagined the characters and the setting and played out your own movie directed inside your head. Another persons interpretation rarely lives up to your expectations.

However, I have to say, in this case I was pleasantly surprised. One Day is so much better than the reviews lead you to believe. Danish Director Lone Scherfig, who was also responsible for the excellent An Education, has done a fantastic job of conveying the ups and downs of Dexter and Emma's relationship and she has stayed extremely faithful to the book's concept of catching up with the friends on the same day every year.

The casting is also extremely well thought out, with Jim Sturgess playing the charming cad Dexter to perfection, so much so that you fall in love with him straight away, so that even when he is doing the most despicable things you still manage to relate to Emma's continued affection for him. Anne Hathaway as always is on good form, although her Yorkshire/American/Bridget Jones accent may get on your nerves after a while as it is clear the poor girl struggled somewhat. Which makes me wonder why they just didn't hire a Brit!
But the real stand out performances are Rafe Spall, who absolutely nails the role of Emma's geeky comedian boyfriend Ian to cringe inducing perfection and the always fabulous Patricia Clarkson, who plays Dexter's mother with such grace and poise and who I have been just a little bit in love with since seeing her in Easy A and The Station Agent.

The only negative point I would bring up is that if you have not read the book, the director's faithfulness to the original story may cause you to become a bit lost. In order to fit in all 15 years worth of days, they have had to cut out a lot of back story, so that during some jumps I found myself having to remember what had happened in the book to make sense of the context of the current scene. For this reason the first 40 mins feels a bit rushed, but once Lone Scherfig slows things down a bit you real start to care about these two characters.

I would definitely recommend this! 4 out of 5 stars!

Check out the trailer and if you go let me know what you think.

The trailers beforehand always throw up some exciting upcoming movies and this time was no exception. I am   very excited by the prospect of Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Colin Firth and John Hurt to name a few in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy out on 16th September.