One Day

One Day

is not an enjoyable film as there is too much sadness and missed opportunities although it is a good film. On my most recent visit to the Olympic Park while in a queue for the Orbit and again when visiting the lower platform area those waiting were entertained a group of singing and playing Mexicans who did not take their music seriously and enjoyed being photographed and having fun. On return home I have seen them several times in the Doritos advert and then again during the film one day when they perform at a Mexican restaurant where the female lead character is waiting at tables.

One Day

is based on a novel of the same name written by David Nicholls and involves the lives of two young people completing their university Education in Edinburgh on July 15^th 1988 and follows how their lives interact on the same day over the subsequent twenty years. The Day is St Swithins with the myth that the weather on the day will last for 40 days and which some also take as good and bad events.

In the film two people spend a night together after a graduation party but without sex although according to the end of the film they go for a countryside walk the following morning and return intending to have sex but run into his parents who have arrived earlier than expected. Thus sets the tone of much else in the film in terms of what might have been and nearly were but always something intervenes. They remain close friends having an intimacy of openness which would threaten other relationships and does; she lives with an unsuccessful stand up comic and works in the restaurant because her poetry is not a success. In the books she writes and performs in plays.

In both film and book the young man Dexter had numerous girl friends, drinks a lot and presents a low level TV show much the distaste of his parents. His mother dies of cancer declaring that she does not like the person he has become. The two have a holiday together which in the films includes an unintentional visit to a Nudist beach where she refuses to participate but in a late night skinny dip which she does. She becomes a teacher. They drift apart having less in common although she retains loving feelings for him

He loses his job and drifts. In the book she has an affair with her headmaster which if it was in the film I missed. He establishes a relationship with a new woman and they have a child together and get married, She published a comic novel which is a great success and goes to Paris where they meet Up. She begins relationship there with a Frenchman jazz pianist just when the man wants to have a relationship with her. His marriage breaks down with his wife‘s infidelity with his employer and former school/university friend. In the book the woman becomes a children‘s author and he manages a deli restaurant which is also successful. They get together and then she is killed while riding her bike. He goes to where they walked on the morning after the met with his daughter from his previous marriage ans rhe film ends with his flasback about what happene don that day

Although one of the themes is the difference between being alone and being lonely, there is more emphasis on being lonely, within and outside of intimate relationships. The other is way events seemingly at random, the juxtapositions of circumstances, can have dramatic effects on lives and in this instance they have more than their fair share, or do they. I did not enjoy the film apart from seeing the Mexican hombres again!