One Day

In the wake of her Oscar-nominated coming-of-age drama An Education, Lone Scherfig crafts a romantic drama that lacks all of its predecessor's grace and subtlety. Based on the popular novel of the same name, One Day invests in the worst of romance tropes to create a cloying and staggered narrative that centers on Dex (Jim Sturgess), an entitled and deeply self-involved British playboy, and his ever-shifting relationship with Emma (Anne Hathaway with a passable English accent), the frumpy ugly duckling who endlessly fawns over him. Overall, One Day is shockingly dull, consisting almost entirely of clichéd constructs that tellingly include an argument where the will-they/won't-they lovers quarrel over the use of a literal cliché. Further hindering the proceedings is a narrative device that focuses solely on every July 15th (St. Swithin's Day), which, beyond appearing an arbitrary indicator, also truncates the film's flow and skips many potentially interesting moments. That the two only connect after he's become a broken-down divorcé and she's become beautiful—though we're thankfully spared the clichéd movie makeover montage of her transformation—is perhaps its most objectionable development. Still, many (who haven't read the book) will be more outraged by the film's cruel final twist.