15th July
may be just another day of 365 in a year. Nothing special, but may not be so
for anyone who has watched the movie One Day. The movie simply put is a
romantic movie at heart but longs and jumps for viewers to recognize the slight
hints of humour and the thin strands of conventional drama in it. A seemingly
shy and skittish Emma played by Anne Hathaway and Dexter played by Jim Sturgess
are batch mates from a regular American college who meet on the 15th of July
1988 during their college graduation. The movie follows the dyad on the exact
same day every year right from 1988-2011 as it follows and examines their life
and the consequence they have on each other's life in the 23 years.
I
personally thought the film following the two of them was nice in a very corny
way but it became rather uncanny how many times they spent the 15th of July
together and in this respect the overview that IMDb provides is unjustly
inaccurate. The overview IMDb gives you yields to believe that their lives
intertwine in a magical story of love and destiny over a long period of time.
In the attempt to follow the two of them over the years the writers have
obviously lost out on the element of detail and that's probably why most
audiences would rate the movie as rather mediocre. In some respects I found
similarities between this and the movie "Blue Valentine". This movie
however lacks the depth because of the several changes in time frames and that
would highlight my main issues with the narrative and I am sure anyone who has
read the book by David Nicholss and watched the feature film would agree.
Anne
Hathaway pulled off a decent Britisher in the flick. Obviously not as well as a
casted actor on a BBC special but it was a good performance by Anne Hathaway
nonetheless. She seems to have a penchant to play troubled lover roles with a
hint of artistic creativity in those roles. Jim Sturgess on the other hand
played a rather conventional romantic male counterpart role for most of the
film except probably for the ending. Most orthodox romantic dramas of Indian
cinema could take a page from this movie. I don't think anyone else could have
done Emma's role justice (that could just be my bias for Anne Hathaway talking)
but Dexter however could be played by Jake Gyllenhaal considering how they did
Love and Other Drugs together.
One
noticeably good aspect of this movie is how it was filmed chiefly in Europe.
The parts of the movie shot in France were immaculately done in my opinion
because it supported the tempo of the scenes positively. The parts of their
movie covering them during 1988 were shot in Edinburgh and were undoubtedly my
favourite parts of the movie. The filming locations have to be the highlight of
the film. This movie marks yet another addition to the modernistic approach
to the genre of romance drama predominantly accompanied by the likes of Love
and other drugs, Blue Valentine, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
If I were
to pick my favourite part of the movie, it would be the ending without a shred
of doubt. That was one part of the movie I think the team nailed. The part post
the 15th July, 2008 is what really added some dimension to the otherwise fairly
linear narrative. The final scene on top of the hill that he revisits was epic.
Overall
the movie was a pleasant watch for anyone who is lazing on a Sunday afternoon
to watch a good little drama with a rather nice story. Ladies please watch this
movie if you haven’t already.
