Last night I watched the film One Day, and from what I'd seen of the previews I really wasn't expecting much. I was happily proven wrong. Based on the reviews I've read people have extreme reactions to this film, they either love it or hate it. Many people mention that the book is much better, but I haven't read the book and only have the film to base my opinion on, and I think it was very well done.
To begin with I loved the character of Emma. She was very easy to relate to and Anne Hathaway did a brilliant job. She even managed to look like a dork at the beginning of the film, which is no mean feat. One of the reasons I think I liked this movie is because it roughly follows the same time frame that I grew up in. I loved seeing the fashions change as they got older and some of the songs on the soundtrack brought back memories. (I'd totally forgotten about the song Roll To Me by Del Amitri, and who could ever forget Tracy Chapman's Talkin' About A Revolution which is still one of my all time faves. It was so funny when Emma put this song on as "mood" music when they were about to get it on at the beginning of the film. No wonder it took them nearly 20 years to consumate their relationship).
I did find the platonic relationship between the two main characters a bit of a stretch. It just didn't make sense to me that a guy with the world at his feet would have time for a girl like Emma. I think they needed to be part of a bigger friendship group for it to be believable, but apart from a couple of friends who made fleeting appearances, it was just the two of them. Some people have complained that because the characters were not even together for much of the film the relationship wasn't very deep, but I didn't find that. After I got past my initial scepticism I found their growing feelings authentic, and the fact that life took them in very different directions also rang true. It was good to see a romantic film that did not focus exclusively on the characters relationship but also looked at their lives when they weren't together which made it more interesting than many films in this genre.
When the finally do get together I really thought the movie was finished and it was a bit of an anti-climax, but oh no, there was another major surprise in store which I did not see coming at all (much like Emma). That's probably one of the major reasons I enjoyed this movie so much - it actually surprised me and not many films manage to do that these days.
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