Wednesday 19 January 2011

20 for 2011: 10 - One Day

Moving into our top ten we have literary adaptation One Day.



After the critical and commercial set back that was Love and Other Drugs Anne Hathaway is in dire need of a rom com success story, and this could just be it. Set over a period of 20 years David Nicholl's self adapted screenplay follows Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) on every St. Swinthins day as their lives intertwine and the romance they should have had drifts apart and together again. It's a delicious concept about fate and patience and making the best of what you have - both of them get involved in hideously inappropriate relationships along the way.

Unfortunately I recently read the novel and by the end I simply couldn't care about the characters. The traits Nicholl gives them to make them rounded or more realistic are just about enough to ensure both of the leads are irritating. Hopefully the screen version has managed to tidy this up - I hope so for Anne sake.

To my shame this is the only film in the 20 most anticipated directed by a woman, An Education helmer Lone Scherfig. Sarah Polley's Take this Waltz and Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood just missed the cut. Should I have included anything else?

2 comments:

Notas Sobre Creación Cultural e Imaginarios Sociales said...

I am DYING to see this one, DYING. The book is one of my faves!

Runs Like A Gay said...

Is that a spoiler?

Like I said in the post I preferred the idea of the book to the final product, but it's good to see you had a different opinion. I very interested to see how the page to screen translation works.