Quality Time

Cast: Anne Hathaway,Jim Sturgess,Patricia Clarkson

Rating: ***1/2

When Harry met Sally,it was the ’60s,women were stepping out,men were holding on and “can the two sexes be friends?” was a question many were asking at the time. One Day begins almost to the year that that film let off,following Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Sturgess) through 20 years of a friendship,flings and heartbreak that,of course,lead only one way.

They have very few points of conflict,and it isn’t very clear why the attractive duo,obviously attracted to each other,decide to keep their relationship purely platonic. Once they do,the screenplay by David Nicholls (who also wrote the book the film is based on) leaves no trick untried to underline the differences between them: she is a Cinderella in the making,hiding behind unruly hair,bushy eyebrows and big glasses,he is old-money-rich who smooth-talks his way from girl to girl; she wants to be a writer,he doesn’t know what to do with his life; she touches success,he degenerates from TV anchoring to drinks and drugs; she is afraid to take chances,his thing is skinny-dipping; she has no love life except a boyfriend whom she doesn’t like and who lives off her,he has no problem getting another moneyed girl for a wife when unemployed.

What lifts One Day over and above these cliches are its two main stars. Hathaway and Sturgess strike a chemistry that makes them entirely believable and comfortable with each other as two friends who have “grown up together”. The always-convincing Hathaway takes you completely by surprise in some of those scenes,her eyes screaming out what she is feeling. Sturgess has the more difficult part,of a hollow charmer who’s basically nice,and tricky as the role he plays,he finds the balance.

The title derives from a date,July 15,that the film tracks them through for 20 years,showing what they are doing that day every year. Some of these days are happy days,others sadder and lonelier,and still they pick up the threads from where they left off.

It’s sad that the film contrives to keep Emma and Dexter apart so long,and sadder still that it rounds up with an ending that takes away from all the effortless normalcy it otherwise stands for.

shalini.langer@expressindia.com