Movie Review Monday: One Day
Welcome to another edition of Movie Review Monday!
This week's film is the 2011 romantic drama One Day, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess.
The plot of this movie utilizes an interesting device. Every year, on the anniversary of their college graduation (July 15), we see where each character is in their lives. Sometimes they are together, and others they are apart.
Emma (Hathaway) is an aspiring writer, and Dexter (Sturgess) struggles to find himself and become grounded. Both acknowledge a connection, but neither allows themselves to fully commit. Emma loves Dexter, but worries about his loyalty, and Dexter can't figure out what he wants from much of anything in life. We start in 1988 and go up until 2011. While Hathaway's British accent isn't convincing for me (I just can't reconcile it with knowing she is American) she gives a decent performance. Sturgess is a bit stronger, and both are nevertheless able to carry the film.
One Day was not what I expected. I thought I was going to get a bit more fantastical elements, but regardless of this, the emotional impact of the film is not lost. While I won't spoil anything here, the takeaway is apparent of how much of an impact a single day can have on our lives. We should make the choices for ourselves to make the most of each day we have.
While it isn't the best movie around saying this sort of thing, I enjoyed how it portrayed life and it's ups and downs. While I would hope that we all have more ups than downs, life is journey and it is a long one. We can never really tell where we're going for sure, but we can decide what we make of ourselves and can decide to make ourselves happy before it is too late. One of my only complaints, probably as an eternal optimist, is some of the darker elements of the story of this movie. At times it seems to be unnecessarily grim and bleak.
You can check out One Day streaming right now on Netflix.