Based on David Nichols' bestseller, "One Day" is a more mature Nicholas Sparks version, but equally tearful and melodramatic. Based on a peculiar and intriguing narrative structure, which revisits the 15th of July in the lives of Dexter and Emma since 1988 over more than 20 years, the story focuses on the maturation of the relationship between its characters, fleeing the punctuality and immediacy that surrounds most novels. Ironically, this same artifice reveals the main weakness of the script - others will be seen in the following paragraphs - because the annual reunion with the characters does not hide the considerable loss of information that motivated sudden changes in the life and behavior of each one.
Sensitively directed by the Danish Lone Scherfig ("Education"), who delicately builds the fluid dynamic between Dexter and Emma (Hathaway), One Day is skillful in establishing the passage of time also with the aid of an impeccable make-up job - and notice how Sturgess, in particular, goes from a smooth-faced, jovial boy to a weary middle-aged man with wrinkles and bags under his eyes, while Hathaway emerges chubby (but not exaggeratedly so) after working two years as a waitress in a Mexican restaurant, which is an interesting detail. Benefiting from a competent cast that creates equally complex secondary characters that help compose the journey of the main couple (worth mentioning Rafe Spall, son of Timothy, who transforms the aspiring comedian Ian into a man that is simultaneously pathetic and moving), the film fails here and there by investing in stereotyped characterizations, but still avoiding that they dominate the narrative - and if Dexter's father appears as the typical "cold and critical father", Ken Stott manages to make him softer through occasional hesitations that point out his internal effort to try to get closer to the child.
Likewise, if Nicholls' dialogues are occasionally forced to appeal to exposition in order to clarify what happened to the characters in the previous year, this is balanced by the good construction of so many other lines (especially those spoken by Hathaway), which they display the cold irony typical of British humor (Emma at one point describes the restaurant where she works as a "graveyard of ambitions"). As if that were not enough, the script also creates really sensitive interactions between those people, highlighting the brief and beautiful scene between Dexter and his mother, who, played by Patricia Clarkson, shows melancholy and love when telling her son that, even certain that he will be a good man, realizes that he "isn't there yet".
The dialogues are a strong point of the script, also written by David Nicholls. They are fast, with intelligent insights and manage to perfectly translate the personality of each character and their relationships with each other. Even with silly jokes, like Dexter's mother in Paris saying to her son, "look over there, Alain Delon" ... or not, it's your father", demonstrating how much she is in love with her husband. There are funny scenes too, like when Dexter plays the most famous scene of Spartacus with the dolls for his daughter. But no character is better translated by the dialogues than Emma, the shy girl, but extremely intelligent and sagacious. Each of her lines is a bit of her temperament, feeling, spontaneity.
However, it is even in the construction of Dexter and Emma that "One Day" proves to be particularly efficient: while the boy quickly achieves professional success, the girl struggles for years trying to make her artistic aspirations viable - a situation that gradually reverses as that we perceive that the former lacks the intellectual, emotional and psychological content that sustains his career, while Emma, growing from suffering, reflection and the simple experience of life, gradually transforms herself into a mature woman and ready to overcome the obstacles that previously prevented it from moving forward (and Sturgess and Hathaway, talented and charismatic, confidently illustrate these changes).
The problem is that Hathaway's character quickly becomes the link with the audience. The dreamy sweetness, the sweetness and the detachment transform Emma into a very pleasant company, something that Dexter cannot see. Unsympathetic, self-centered and narcissistic, he uses Emma more as someone to quench the loneliness caused by her personality and assuage her pain and addictions than as a true friendship. Played by the expressionless Sturgess and his characteristic face of suffering, it is practically impossible to believe the beautiful and sensitive Emma fell in love with the guy after a disastrous dinner in which he exposes her (dis)interest. In this way, she emerges as the tragic anchor of the narrative, surrendering herself to the loves of a person she does not love, just to fill the sentimental need. What is revealed in the most cliché of sentences, enunciated according to the Nicholas Sparks booklet: "she made him decent; you made her happy".
As Emma and Dexter mature, the adolescent, dreamy and inconsequential traits give way to realistic, cynical and disillusioned versions, propelled by tragedies, some of them approached with excessive disregard and disengagement due to the narrative structure - yet another negative effect of this. Elevated to the status of protagonist, an incorrect and questionable decision, Dexter undergoes a wide dramatic arc from his mother's illness (Clarkson), the cancellation of the television program, his marriage to Sylvie (Romola Garai, the young woman from "Desire and Reparation" and increasingly better actress), to an event that would definitely humanize him. At times, Emma's life is described in terms of her dream of becoming a writer or her relationship with Ian (Rafe Spall), which is disappointing.
By scrutinizing and dissecting fractions of those characters' lives, certain moments should be more appropriately explored in David Nicholls' script. Dexter's firing after a botched interview and being hired on a video game show lacks a glimpse into the character's journey, though we understand what led to this precipitous fall. Similarly, Emma's relationship with Ian, presented at a dinner party without sparks or the guy's inability to make jokes, culminates in the explanation that she can't "take him watching Wrath of Khan every day anymore". This excessive exposition becomes constant in the film, requiring that a character needs to contextualize the events that are taking place to the public, which exposes the artificiality of the undertaking; well, if Emma and Dexter are such good friends, it was expected that he would reveal the bad news in the expected time and not months later.
On the other hand, the annual narrative is well explored by Danish director Lone Scherfig, and the use of raccords and ellipses in Barney Pilling's montage stands out. And not just temporality, but the duo of characters allows Benoît Delhomme's photography to individualize Emma's trajectory in a nostalgic sepia, while Dexter is bathed in a depressing bluish color palette. Finally, Rachel Portman's score avoids being too intrusive, competently punctuating the narrative. Yes, the idea is curious and the narrative exercise valid (albeit flawed). The trajectory of two people is drawn before our eyes and, let's face it, it's not something usual in novel production. It is a pity, therefore, that the chosen 15th of July sounds hopelessly clichéd and expositional, making the unknown 364 remaining days of each year seem more interesting by comparison.
We cannot, however, say that the film is not romantic. It has its moments, even if it prepares us to tears in such an obvious and brief way. Soon we will be in the next year, and the year after that, forgetting the pain and moving on. But that doesn't stop us from living in the moment. They are brief, it is true, but true and well-constructed. Especially in the final act, where we desperately want to go back to the beginning, as an attempt to remake the story, or at least fool our minds with that simple encounter in the middle of the street and a kiss seals the love story that should have been. Director Lone Scherfig managed to bring delicacy to the story of Emma and Dexter, making "One Day" a sensitive film. A love story built without resources common to films of this nature. Everything is almost realistic and fearful as life. She regrets that, when the situation picks up, she pulls the rug out from under us, with a cliché situation, announced, made just to make us cry. And she didn't even make it. Still, a good movie of its kind.
