ROMANTIC DRAMA; 1hr 47min
STARRING: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess
Another day: Hathaway and Sturgess
Ms Hathaway in bluestocking English-rose mode? Gosh, yes! As no-nonsense grad student Emma Worley, she is as close to frumpy as it’s possible for a certified bombshell to be when One Day kicks off on July 15, 1988. Emma is a poet who slums it as a waitress to pay the rent and really should be getting it together with her silvertail playboy pal Dexter Mayhew (Sturgess), except that he’s all over the place. So can Em and Dex be plain old friends?
An Education director Lone Scherfig’s reflective film of David Nicholls’s bestselling 2009 novel — adapted for the screen by the author — is in no hurry to answer that one while the years scroll by and we check in with the two every July 15. As a couple, Hathaway and Sturgess have the lived-in feel of the genuine article. Their finely shaded characters are given plenty of breathing space by Nicholls and Scherfig, and it speaks volumes that we very much want the best for them without necessarily believing that they’re going to get it.
