One Day (2011)

Within the first two minutes of One Day, I'd already worked out exactly what was going to happen. Predictability is the name of the game with romantic dramas but in this case, the plot and the ending are so obviously signposted that they might as well tell you up front exactly what happens.

Emma Morley (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter Mayhew (Jim Sturgess) meet on the day of their graduation from university in 1988. They almost sleep together but decide to become friends instead. Over the next twenty years, their friendship, career prospects and relationships fluctuate wildly. She becomes a waitress and then a teacher and dates an unsuccessful comedian (Rafe Spall). He travels, then becomes an irritating TV presenter, much to the chagrin of his parents (Patricia Clarkson and Ken Stott), and gets engaged to the glamorous Sylvie (Romola Garai). Emma and Dexter fight, they fall out, they make up, they reminisce, blah, blah, blah. You all know where it's heading.

With a film as boring and predictable as this, you'd at least hope to be drawn to the characters. No such luck here. Hathaway is fine as the boring and straight-laced Emma (even if her "Yorkshire" accent isn't) but Sturgess' character is so awful, so inherently unlikeable, the only thing I found myself wishing for him was that he die a slow and painful death. You're clearly meant to root for the two of them to get together but he's such an utter twat and she's so boring that I didn't give a shit what happened to either of them.

I struggled to think of anything I enjoyed about this film. The narrative is quite interesting, flashing forward in time year by year, and some of the supporting characters are well-acted. Other than that, there are no positives here at all.

This film has almost nothing to offer but boredom and misery. A plodding and predictable plot, burdened by one of the most detestable characters I've seen in a very long time.

2 out of 10.