A great hue and cry arose across the pond last year when it was announced that American Anne Hathaway had been cast as Em, the less-than-glamorous British heroine in the film version of the best-selling novel “One Day” — basically “When Harry Met Sally” with a four-handkerchief twist.
Dowdy costumes — and that old Hollywood standby, glasses — may not be able to dim Hathaway’s star wattage, and her wavering accent may not pass muster with picky Brits. But for me, Hathaway turns out to be the best thing in director Lone Scherfig’s disappointing follow-up to the extravagantly praised “An Education.”
The new film’s action takes place every July 15, beginning in 1988 and continuing for two decades or so. Working-class Em hooks up with the handsome, more affluent Dex (British actor Jim Sturgess of “Across the Universe”) on the day of their college graduation in Edinburgh.
PHOTOS: ANNE HATHAWAY’S LEADING MEN
They’re not always together on July 15 — in 1990, he’s partying with a naked woman in Paris, and Em is underemployed as a manager at a Mexican restaurant in London. She eventually moves in with a smitten colleague, a failed comedian (Rafe Spall, son of Timothy) she doesn’t quite love.
Returning to London, Dex acquires a measure of stardom — as well as a taste for cocaine, booze and promiscuity — as the host of a cheesy late-night music program on TV. On one of their several reunions on various July 15s, including a skinny-dipping episode, he rudely brushes aside her concerns about his hard-partying lifestyle, which is taking a toll on his career.
Her relationship founders, but the comedian’s parting gift is to encourage her literary ambitions, and sure enough, her first book is a best seller. By this point, the self-pitying Dex — who’s lost his mother (Patricia Clarkson, in a small role) to cancer and his TV show — has hit rock bottom. A short-lived marriage (to Romola Garai) that produces a daughter and an unhappy new career does little to reverse his downward trajectory.
At some point in the late ’90s, Em and Dex decide they were fated for each other after all. It’s easy to see how Dex would be attracted to the newly self-confident Em. I had more of a problem understanding why Em would want anything to do with Dex, a substance-abusing jerk who is anything but charming.
I might be able to get past that if Hathaway and Sturgess had any chemistry. There are no sparks whatsoever, and that’s always a deal-breaker for me in romantic films.
“An Education” conveyed a wonderful sense of time and place, something that’s largely missing here — if it weren’t for title cards and the occasional shoulder pad, it would be hard to tell whether you’re looking at a scene from 1996 or 2006.
David Nicholls, who adapted his own novel for the screen, doesn’t work the same alchemy that Nick Hornby created from Lynn Barber’s memoir for “An Education.” There’s far too much on-the-nose dialogue (“She made you decent”), plus Nicholls adds an extremely schmaltzy ending chapter that wasn’t in his book.
Even with his hair grayed up, Sturgess in no way physically conveys the middle-aged man he’s become toward the end. Hathaway, though, suggests Em’s life journey beautifully, and she’s the best reason to see “One Day,” if you must.
Just brace yourself for a digital effect that’s as overused in contemporary movies as it is unconvincing.