It's been said good books do not make good movies. There may be some truth to this argument: With a well-written novel, expectations are high on the part of its devoted fans, who are likely to nitpick casting and visual choices as "not exactly like I pictured it." Of course, there are exceptions that prove the rule, but in the case of "One Day," the screen adaptation of last year's bestselling novel falls squarely within.
The concept of "One Day" is simple: the story follows Brits Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway, whose dialect coach should be shot) through July 15th of each year for two decades, from their meeting at college graduation into their 40s. Some days are spent together, others apart. As their lives progress through sick parents, career changes and relationships, Dexter and Emma fall in and out of each other's orbits, going back and forth in their feelings for one another.
The novel "One Day" contains many lovely sequences, returning several times to Dex and Em's first July 15th, and resulting in a deep affection for both characters, even at their most flawed. However, the screenplay — also written by the book's author, David Nicholls — fails miserably where the book succeeds: The film glosses over several important plot points or disregards them completely.
While edits are often necessary when adapting a book to the screen, Nicholls trims too much and the result are two archetypes — the spoiled rich boy who must grow up and the working class girl who must grow a pair — rather than fully realized, empathetic human beings. It doesn't help that Sturgess and Hathaway possess very little chemistry as friends or as lovers. The only relationship that feels authentic is that between Dexter and his mother (Patricia Clarkson), and those scenes are all too brief.
How could "One Day" the movie have improved? Perhaps the material is too dense for two hours and would have been more conducive to an HBO miniseries. Perhaps Nicholls (an experienced screenwriter) should have relinquished the adaptation to someone less attached to the source material. Nothing can be done now, and it's a shame: if the comments overheard after the screening I attended were any indication, "One Day" has disappointed the very people it should have made disciples of: the book's loyal readers.