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.

The Dark Knight Rises Casting

If it has not already been drawn to your attention, it was announced today that Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy have been cast as Catwoman and Bane in Christopher Nolan’s third Bat-film,The Dark Knight Rises. Whilst it is a little early to gauge a prevailing popular opinion on this news, allow me to offer my two cents on the matter.

It seems clear to me that a great deal of the point of The Dark Knight was to set up The Joker as the proposed trilogy’s final villain – as the late, great Heath Ledger taunts Christian Bale’s Batman at that film’s conclusion, ‘I think you and I are destined to do this forever’. Unfortunately, sad real life events put a stop to any further outings for The Joker in Nolan’s saga. Also unfortunate (but to a far lesser degree), was the decision to kill off Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, who would have served as an excellent third film villain in Ledger’s absence. These two deaths, both fictional and real, have forced Nolan to enlist new villains for the inevitable third film.

Of course, the watch-word for Nolan’s series thus far has been realism, or at least something approaching it, which rules out a great deal of Batman’s rogues gallery (Killer Croc, for example). There were also rumours regarding an admirable ambition on the scriptwriter’s behalf of a reluctance to utilise villains that had appeared in Batman films before (though that clearly hasn’t materialised). As such, Catwoman seems like a reasonable choice, though Bane perhaps less so.

Like Batman, Catwoman traditionally is a superpower-less character (barring a vague ‘nine-lives’ power in some iterations), who operates as a thief, so that fits into Nolan’s world relatively nicely. Hathaway seems like a reasonable choice for the role and the tone of the previous Nolan Batman films suggests that The Dark Knight Rises would bridge the gap between her more mature roles (in films such as Brokeback Mountain and Rachel Getting Married) and her more family-friendly fare (The Princess Diaries, Get Smart, Bride Wars). The woman has decent range and so long as her part is written well, she could well be exemplary in the role. It would be interesting (though perhaps ill-advised) if Nolan were to tackle the romantic angle between Batman and Catwoman, though probably unlikely given Bruce Wayne’s devastation at the death of Rachel Dawes in the previous film.

Bane, on the other hand is a more risky choice. Traditionally portrayed as a magic potion enhanced super soldier, he may have to be adapted to fit into Nolan’s world, perhaps as a steroid freak? His major contribution to Bat-lore would be breaking the Caped Crusader’s spine back in the early nineties. Whilst that was a thrilling arc in the comics, it is hard to imagine how it would be written into what is presumably the final instalment in Nolan’s saga, without leaving an awful lot of loose ends or making for an awfully rushed film. Hardy, however, is an extremely promising actor and his turn in Bronson as a semi-psychotic hard arse would suggest he could suit the role.

If the previous two films (and his other work) have taught us anything, it’s that Nolan has more than earned our trust with the Batman franchise, having not put a foot wrong thus far. Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow is still potentially in the mix, so we should not rule out an appearance from him. If there has been one positive from Ledger’s death, it would be the fact that his excellent performance in The Dark Knight has forced any other actors entering the franchise to really raise their game. If Hathaway and Hardy comply, then I’m sure they’ll shine in The Dark Knight Rises.