One Day Review

David Nicholls’ One Day was easily my favourite book of the last year or two. I read it towards the end of last year and have since foisted it upon as many family and friends as possible. It has been my default birthday present for several people and probably will be for several more to come. So of course, when I heard about the inevitable film adaptation, I had the familiar feelings of excitement, hope and mild dread that anyone who has had a much-loved source text transferred to the big screen has felt.

Whilst one always finds oneself tempering the feelings of optimism about anticipated adaptations – you know it’s never going to be as good as the book/TV programme/comic/videogame/theme park ride – it is impossible not to get a little bit excited. Why is this? Why do we have a compulsion to see things translated into onto screen? It’s not like there’s any clamour for the latest novelisation of the latest blockbuster (incidentally, I saw the book of Cowboys and Aliens in WHSmiths today – that’s right, the book of the film of the graphic novel. I hear it’s going to tear up the charts). Of course, the reason film adaptations are produced is because there’s a built in audience that can be exploited for cold hard cash – but my real question is why do we want to see our books put on screen in the first instance?

I guess to answer the question personally; my interest is in seeing how other people have interpreted something I love. Did they have the same response to the material as I did? Did it evoke the same emotions and did the way events played out in my head reflect how it played out in theirs? I suppose it’s a social-communicative thing. Having studied Literature and Film for a year though, I can tell you that the fair way to approach adaptations is to judge each medium on its own merits. Just as you can’t compare tarantulas with ring-tailed lemurs, nor can you really compare books and films – they’re different beasts. That was the approach I took when watching One Day – not to compare it to the book, but to judge how good a film it is in its own right.

Anyway, enough waffle. Despite wanting to judge it on its own merits, I was encouraged to learn that the screenplay was written by Nicholls and that the film is directed by Lone Scherfig, whose previous feature, An Education, impressed me. The actors were more unknown qualities: Anne Hathaway is great, but could she do Yorkshire? As for Jim Sturgess, I wasn’t overly familiar with his work.

The story concerns Emma and Dexter, a pair who almost got together on the night of their graduation, but didn’t. Instead, they form a friendship and we are granted a glimpse into their lives every 15th of July from 1989 to 2011. As such, we don’t get a blow by blow account of their relationship, we see the parts in between, as Emma goes through a crappy job and a dead-end boyfriend and Dexter becomes a minor celebrity and endures tumultuous relationships with his parents and with his partner. Obviously they get together at some point, but that’s not really the point – One Day is more about the realities of relationships, the missed chances and wasted years, the minutiae of our protagonists’ lives.

What the film does well are the big emotional moments – there are several and most of them will no doubt leave all but the most stony-hearted sobbing wrecks. The talent behind and in front of the camera combine to make sure the key sequences make the maximum impact. Perhaps less well executed are the smaller details. The first few years flash by as the film races to get to the juicer parts of the story. A slowing of pace earlier on would have given the characters a little room to breathe and introduce themselves a little better. The actors acquit themselves well (as a Yorkshireman, I recognise that Hathaway’s much maligned accent isn’t as consistent as it should be, but was largely untroubled by this), with Sturgess doing particularly well in a complex part.

Of course, comparisons to the book are unfortunately inevitable. I don’t want to dwell too much, but I will say that by and large, it’s about as good an adaptation as one could reasonably expect. Nevertheless, I would fully recommend the film to all and sundry – ignore the girly marketing, the film speaks not only to both genders, but also to a broad age range: in a rather unusual turn of events, I was very kindly allowed to take both my mam and my granny to the screening. I can assure you that three generations of my family loved the film. You are unlikely to view anything else as equal parts funny, poignant, understated and utterly heart-breaking this year.