‘One Day’ avoids melodrama of other romances

That’s the gimmick — or, if you prefer, the unifying principle — for "One Day," a bittersweet reelin’-in-the-years chronicle of two college friends.

Make that two post-college friends, because Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) don’t really become friends until after they connect on July 15, 1988 — the fateful date of their college graduation from a British university.

July 15, naturally, becomes "One Day’s" one day, catching up with these characters year by year for the next two decades.

Sometimes they’re together on that fateful date. Sometimes they’re apart — so far apart that they’re not speaking.

And while there’s never much doubt that these two belong together, don’t expect the kind of fated-to-be-mated passion that movies like "The Notebook" (and other adaptations of Nicholas Sparks’ literary oeuvre) encourage audiences to embrace.

In part, that’s because "One Day" is based on David Nicholls’ novel of the same name — and Nicholls himself adapted it for the screen, so one presumes the author’s intent has been preserved.

Besides, director Lone Scherfig just doesn’t make those kinds of movies.

If you saw "An Education," Scherfig’s 2009 coming-of-age tale, you know go-for-it audience uplift and all-stops-out emotion aren’t quite her style.

And while "One Day" is hardly in the same league as "An Education," it remains blessedly free of the strenuously melodramatic sentiments that clog the arteries of most cinematic romances.

Not that "One Day" won’t tug at your heart, eventually and perhaps even repeatedly.

It’s just that the movie knows the difference between love and being in love — and, eventually, so do its protagonists.

That reflects a refreshingly mature attitude when it comes to the sort of friendship most movies aren’t interested in exploring. They’re usually more interested in the "friends with benefits" type of relationship anyway.

And so, sometimes, are Emma and Dexter.

She’s a down-to-earth lass of working-class origins. But Emma, despite her status, is determined to make a difference in the world. Exactly how she plans to do that while waiting tables in a London restaurant, she’s not sure. But at least she’s trying to figure it out.

Unlike to-the-manor-born Dex, who’s determined to not be determined, preferring to party his way through life. If that takes him to an easy TV career, so much the better; at least it gets him away from home. That way, even though he’ll still disappoint his vivacious mother (the invaluable Patricia Clarkson) and crusty father (Brit TV veteran Ken Stott), he won’t have to deal with their disappointment face to face.

Because these two don’t (or won’t) have a future together, despite their all-too-obvious attachment to each other, "One Day" can concentrate on them as individuals. As a result, we can observe how their individual quirks impact, and change, their friendship through the years. And, as they learn to care, so do we.

Inevitably, others also play significant roles in their lives. For Emma, it’s the endearingly awkward Ian (the adorkable Rafe Spall), a wannabe stand-up comedian who’s only funny when he’s trying, desperately, to be serious. And while Dexter often loses count of his sexual conquests, the posh, proper Sylvie ("Atonement’s" Romola Garai ) manages to forge an emotional bond as well as a physical one.

In adapting his novel for the screen (as he did with the 2006 charmer "Starter for 10"), Nicholls maintains a remarkably clear-eyed perspective, refusing to get all gushy and gooey — even when, on occasion, his characters threaten to do just that.

Scherfig echoes that approach, establishing a rueful tone that captures not only the characters’ mutual yearning but their unwillingness (and, perhaps, inability) to get past the past and break through to the present. (Whenever that present happens to be.) That leaves those of us in the audience blessedly free to form our own emotional responses — unlike all too many movies that try to force our feelings through relentless manipulation.

With the movie’s focus on the personal, it’s vital that "One Day’s" two leads be capable of connecting — with each other, and with us.

Reflecting the characters they play, they’re not quite evenly matched.

Sturgess ("21," "Across the Universe") ably conveys Dexter’s breezy, I’m-entitled attitude, but he never quite bridges the gap between the carefree flirt we first meet and the man he ultimately becomes.

Hathaway, of course, is a past master at character transformation — as she’s demonstrated in movies as different as "The Princess Diaries" and "The Devil Wears Prada." And while her British accent wanders all over the island, undermining the social status it’s supposed to signal, Hathaway’s body language remains understatedly eloquent as she charts Emma’s attempts to reconcile herself to the fact that her dreams might never come true.

The romantic dreams she tries to hide, that is. They’re perfectly visible in her brave face and in her shining eyes, and if Dexter would only look at her the way she looks at him, he’d see it.

Those of us in the audience already do, of course. And what we see gives "One Day" a quiet but beguiling glow.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.