Walking out of the theater in near tears is not something viewers were led to expect from trailers for Focus Features’ romantic drama “One Day.”
Based on the international bestseller by David Nicholls, “One Day” revisits Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) every year on July 15 ““ the day that they graduated from university and nearly slept together. From the years of career uncertainty, to bouts with drugs and loss, to the moment they both seem to have life figured out, Emma and Dexter call themselves best friends.
Emma, a witty would-be writer from a working-class family, struggles to find success and love in London. Her crush on Dexter is apparent from the beginning, and her large glasses and frizzy hair emphasize how one-sided her emotions seem to be. The privileged and womanizing Dexter leaves university ready to take the television world by storm. He is selfish and takes advantage of Emma’s friendship even when she is his only friend.
As the two continue on their ways ““ Emma eventually becoming an elementary school teacher, Dexter a reformed drug addict as well as a stable husband and father ““ the only consistent element is Emma’s more-than-friends feelings for Dexter. Whether or not Dexter reciprocates is never quite clear and every event seems to take the two farther away from one another.
And as life would have it, July 15 turns out to be an exciting day every year. The audience is constantly ambushed with life-changing events with little warning and even less context. Sickness, engagements and Dexter’s divorce, children and betrayals become underlying plot points in the overall story of Emma and Dexter. The constant heightened sense of drama also makes the film slightly exhausting to watch.
Viewers may begin to question whether they really want these characters to get together. “One Day” keeps this area feeling gray and it is difficult to see how their lives will ever manage to align in the satisfying way moviegoers come to expect all movie romances to coalesce.
When the two do finally get together, which happens to take place a considerable time before the credits start to roll, it all seems great. However, there is still an incongruity between the couple viewers have been watching since their university days and the couple on-screen toward the end of the movie. They seem to belong together, but it is difficult to fully see how Dexter and Emma got from point A to point B.
It turns out that there is more to their story than has been shown thus far. The final 10 minutes served to turn the story on its head. It gives a glimpse of a day other than July 15 and it presents the relationship in a new light. For the first time viewers understand where the basis for their romantic relationship came from and they can actually accept Emma and Dexter as two people that were meant to be together.
While it takes a good chunk of the film to set up the story of Emma and Dexter, the payoff ends up being worth it. Even if the payoff includes a punch-to-the-gut twist.
Email Suchland at ssuchland@media.ucla.edu.