They say that your best friend is usually your true love. That’s exactly how the story of One Day begins. Bookworm and aspiring writer Emma (Hathaway) and cocky womanizer Dexter (Sturgess) meet on the night of their graduation in Scotland. Due to Emma’s nerves and moral compass nothing happens, but there’s a definite connection between these two young people. They decide that on the one year anniversary of their initial meeting, July 15th, they shall meet and see how each other are doing. We follow these two fascinating people to see how time not only changes them but brings them closer together.
The film takes us through the late 1980’s to present day 2011. So, we see Emma and Dexter sport some really bad hairdos ad clothing but we also get to see them in different phases of their life. Emma’s young life is full of her struggling to figure out what she wants to do while praying someone might give her a book deal. Dexter,however, is on top of the world by being a television producer for some late-night trashy television show that his dying mother certainly does not approve of. As the film goes on, we see Emma finally reaching success and Dexter being far from it as a divorcee single father. It’s through this time that they see clearly the love that has always been their between them.
Hathaway is delightful as ever in this role but kind of unexpected to see her cast in this kind of movie. One would assume that since it was such a best-seller in Britain that they would pick a British actor to play both leading roles, but they actually made a really good choice. Hathaway once again proved how much of a serious actress she is be giving her all to this beloved character. She and Sturgess lit up the screen with their chemistry. One could tell they had a real good sense of their characters and that’s what made them so great to watch. But Sturgess definitely stole the movie with his character. We all fell in love with him when we saw him as the lovestruck songbird Jude in Across the Universe and ever since then we’ve only seen him in films that were not truly showing off what he could do. This movie showed that Sturgess loves his craft and shall be seen in more great movies to come. The character he played has to go through much tragedy and the way he portrayed that pain was so real it was mesmerizing.
Overall, the love story is beautiful but tragic. This portrayal of this bestseller was in luck because the author, David Nicholls, was also the screenwriter. He definitely brought alive the love that was between these two. This film is unlike other love stories because we see how time brings this couple apart and back together. Their love is that kind that makes life so wonderful and that’s what makes the movie.