One Day

26/100 (107 min, 2011)
Plot: After spending the night together on the night of their college graduation Dexter and Em are shown each year on the same date to see where they are in their lives. They are sometimes together, sometimes not, on that day.
Director: Lone Scherfig
Writers: David Nicholls (screenplay), David Nicholls (book)
Stars: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess and Patricia Clarkson

The not so charming union of bad accent and bad acting

How hard can it be to make a fine romantic movie? I'm starting to think that it may be the hardest thing in the movie business. Why? Because the amount of crappy romantic comedies and other pseudo romance movies we are flooded with lately is scary. Say what you want about Hugh Grant, but at least when he was starring in those things they were proper movies with lots of laugh and romanticism. Now we get products like "One Day".

How do you make a successful movie? You have to have a good script. How do you make a good romantic film? You have to have two strong leads with chemistry. Does "One Day" has either one of those? Oh no, it doesn't. I can see the producers' reasoning - the story is quite romantic - the idea of two people meeting for one day each year, Jim Sturgess is good looking enough and Anne Hathaway is cute. But the story is horribly undeveloped, Sturgess has the screen charisma of a potato and Hathaway's accent is one of the most atrocious things I've heard in a long time. It could even challenge what Swank sounded like in "Black Dahlia". On the side note - why is an American playing a British girl? I'm pretty sure they could have found much prettier and talented girl than Hathaway in any given pub in London.

Hathaway's acting isn't bad, but whenever she opens her mouth you just want to stop watching this movie. I know it's dificult for a person to judge what she sounds like but surely there must have been at least one hearing person on the set of this movie. If she speaks like this in "The Dark Knight Rises" Nolan may have more trouble with her than he does with Bane's voice at the moment.

Actors aside the movie is just boring. At times it is both painful and embarrassing to watch. Sturgess's character Dexter has a show on TV which is bad, to put it midly. Instead of showing us just one scene which demonstrated just how bad it is, the director insists on getting back to that - neither of those scenes is funny or essential to the movie in any way. Most of the plot lines in the movie are just abandoned somewhere and I especially loved all the "let's be serious" moments that must have made it here from different movie - just like with "Friends and Benefits" there is of course a sick parent to add a little bit of drama. Why? Who knows. Both movies are disasters.

But the best part and by best I mean most laughable is what happens to Emma. Since I really advice you all not to watch this one I'm gonna spoil this one - ready? OK. In the beginning scenes we see Emma on the bike. It doesn't even require you to see "City of Angels" to know that this dumb, cute creature will get hit by something and die. So Emma is riding joyfully, with the expression on her face as if she has just seen God, as of course we are shown images of Dexter eagerly awaiting her somewhere and then BANG! Emma is no more. But then there is of course hugely moving and tragic epilogue where devastated Dexter remembers all those happy moments with her. Since I didn't care about either of those people it was just more boring scenes, one after another.

And about the chemistry which is virtually non existent between Hathaway and Sturgess - they play college buddies well, but they can't make us believe they in love with each other. Emma is bland and annoying, Dexter is a complete and total loser. I couldn't believe one woman would be interested in him, much less two. Because of course at one point of the story Dexter gets married to another girl to Emma's heartbreak. Ah, such problems and tragedies those poor people face.

There are some good things in here - lovely Patricia Clarkson, who was also in "Friends with Benefits" which makes me seriously worried about the state of her carrer, nice cinematography and...oh, I guess that's it. It's surprising because the director of this movie is none other than Lone Scherfig who made lovely and beautifully executed "An Education" which put Carey Mulligan on the map and even earned her Oscar nomination. Oh, well.

I sometimes say trailer is better than the movie. In case of "One Day" the poster is better than the movie.