Adaptation Alert: One Day

by Kelly Bedard

The film adaptation of the truly wonderful book One Day, predictably, leaves much to be desired. While the presence of the always sensational Patricia Clarkson (perfectly cast in the pivotal role of Dexter’s idealized mother) certainly helped the film along, the incredible miscasting of the story’s leading lady proved devastating to the adaptation.

So much of the complication in Dexter and Emma’s relationship comes from their regional class differences. In casting an American actress (no matter how charming) without perfect accent skills, the filmmakers essentially robbed themselves of that crucial tool. Anne Hathaway could have given the performance of her life (which, for the record, she did not even come close to giving) and no one would have cared because her accent work was just so bad. It was inexcusable (though I will admit that no one pulls off an "awkward girl comes into her own" makeover quite like Hathaway).

One Day

One of the year's most successful literary offerings, One Day by David Nicholls is so much more than chick lit. The story of Emma and Dexter is hilarious, heartbreaking, poignant and inescapably honest. It also sports a truly excellent structure, dropping in on Em and Dex once a year from 1988 to 2006. The one day structure allows for an interesting ambiguity as we miss many of the big moments in their lives, dropping in, instead on July 15th every year, the anniversary of their meeting. Sometimes that day is an exceptionally important one (a wedding, a vacation, a fight, a death) and sometimes it's a boring glimpse into lives stuck in depressing limbos (Mexican restaurants, tedious social scenes, dead-end relationships). And oftentimes, it's those boring moments that tell us the most.

The story of Emma and Dexter is wonderfully complicated, a relationship too complex for easy description. They're romantic, but not always, in love, in hate, in all sorts of things, but for the most part, they're best friends. There's a point near the end of the novel when Emma says that her and Dex "grew up together", though they met when they were 22. It's a story about growing up and learning who you are and having someone to lean on.

One Day has romance, comedy, tears, laughter and everything in between but the sum is truly worth more than its parts.