One Day, Anne Hathaway will deliver on the promise of her talent.ONE DAY (M) her latest movie, is not that awaited delivery!
ONE DAY delivers Anne into a hackneyed, stereotypical ‘stand by your man’ scenario, though he’s a shite, and the set up is demeaning of her talent and her gender!
The shite in question is played by Jim Sturgess who made ACROSS THE UNIVERSE with Julie Taymor, but under Lone Scherfig’s disappointing direction can’t make ONE DAY rise.
Lone Sherfig? Yes, the talented director of AN EDUCATION, WILBUR WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF and ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS has tripped and fallen here, big time, and one can only wonder has there been studio interference?!
David Nicholls has adapted his bestselling novel and after seeing the film I’ll never want to read it!
The ONE DAY of the title refers to is July 15th, St. Swithen’s Day, a canonical feast day that should be renamed St. Smittens Day if Hathaway’s character is a bellwether.
On that day in 1988, the gormless Emma Morley (Hathaway) tries to shag fellow uni grad Dexter Mayhew (Sturgess). It turns into a shambles but a friendship develops. For him, she’s the sister he never had, for her; he’s the marathon she’ll run the torch for.
He’s a playboy who makes it big in mindless television. She’s a talented writer who waits tables for years before she finally gets published. She is everything fine in this world, he is everything foul!
And yet she hankers for him; harbours homey, horny, husband hopes for him. You just know its not going to end well, but the film ignores the venerated Japanese sage Basho who is reputed to have said, ‘it is better to travel hopefully than arrive’.
The only hope doled out in this sticky date movie is when his screen parents are allowed their allotted brief scenes.
Patricia Clarkson and Ken Stott are the sole, saving grace of this unsatisfying blancmange, whose mould is set too early, thus necessitating being served cold and chilling, any warmth in the main narrative.
What warmth there is, what credibility, what truth is allowed, comes from Clarkson and Stott. One Day we might get a whole film about them. That would be One Day to look forward to!
© Richard Cotter
30th August 2011
