One Day (2011)

Supposedly, there's a mini-series of this on Netflix released this year. I saw the movie version  in 2011, and I wrote about it at the time of the film's release.

"July 15ths with Emma and Dex"
or
"Same Time Next Year"

Can a man and woman "just" be friends? (the question posed by When Harry Met Sally)  I've gone 'round and 'round with this one. I've said "Yes" for many years, and then that became "No," then back to "Yes," and now, it's something of a toss-up. "It's possible," I say noncommittally (which is the basis for many of the male-female problems, friendship or no).

But anything is possible.

 
"One Day" was a nifty best-seller by David Nicholls, smart, tight and funny, a romance told in snap-shots of one day that was realistic about the vagaries of life and love and the "yin" and "yang" of both. What makes the novel special gets distilled somewhat in celluloid form, making One Day feel a bit less exceptional, the humor muted somewhat, and given the twenty year time-span of the movie, some of the anniversaries celebrated are given short shrift, skipping to the more complicated "good parts," as opposed to those years when nothing much happens...you know, like "life."*

Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have "just met" at their graduation as they string along with their mutual friends, a couple. Emma is bookish, unstylish, a bit of a character—has a "nice personality"—Dexter is boyishly handsome and knows it, and Emma is "crushing." An awkward "overnight" happens, where it is unclear what transpired, but it's important enough that Dexter is helping Emma move when the next 15th of July occurs, but not important enough that Dexter isn't moving to Paris to teach.

July's come and July's go, as Emma suffers through waitressing at a London Tex-Mex restaurant and Dexter jumps from job to job, eventually becoming  the smarmy host for a late-night dance teen program. Where Emma is a busy bee, droning through know-where jobs until she catches her big break, Dex is a moth attracted to the brightest (or blondest) thing in the room. They're devoted to each other, but only so far. As her star rises, his sets—first Mom (the ever-reliable Patricia Clarkson) dies of cancer, then his fortunes go South, followed by years of over-indulgence. Before you can say "This is Mrs. Norman Maine," he is seeking her out, where she has nearly given up. As traditional as this is, what is nice about One Day is that Emma does just fine without him, she makes her way in the world without a man's help (and frequently, they're a hindrance), whereas in most films of the romantic genre, everything can be solved by anything in pants.

The director, Lone Scherfig, previously made An Education, which, while well-acted and elegantly directed, suffered from a distinct lack of heat and a little too much posh. The former problem still applies here. The film is decidedly chilly in tone, and while this is a welcome change from the day-glo color, syrupy music rom-coms that chirp incessantly about Moon, June, (premarital) Honeymoon," poking you in the heart-area that "Love is Great, right? RIGHT?" One Day makes it hard to feel anything beyond "Gee...that sucks."

Maybe it's the skipping around from year to year, but there's a distinct lack of focus in the story, as it spreads itself around a bit too thin, the ancillary characters populating the movie to make life difficult for Emma and Dexter, necessary irritants and bothers that will drive them into each other's arms every year. Plus, the story arcs of the two main characters run precipitously up and down, without any jolts of happiness amidst the gloom, or hurdles to happiness on the ascent.**

Things settle down as people "settle" and, although One Day manages to avoid many of the cliches of the romantic genre, it also hasn't found anything as compelling to replace them. Plus, with the mutual reversals of fortune, there seems to be a dramatically required "leveling of the playing field" in order for things to resolve "the way they should".

One should be grateful that one is asking these questions about a romance movie (haven't done that in a while), so it's nice to see somebody making the attempt. But, one gets the idea that the same old "Love Potion No.9" is being hawked. All they've done is change the shape of the bottle.

* One of my favorite quotes is by Anton Chekhov: Any idiot can survive a crisis; it's the day-to-day living that wears you down.

**  Well, that's not entirely true, but we don't want to give anything away. 

Silver Linings Playbook

No Dolby; No Squelch
or
"Hey!!..."

In Silver Linings Playbook, there's a scar above Bradley Cooper's nose that I found myself focusing on throughout the entire movie. It's not like Harrison Ford's chin-scar that has followed him around from movie to movie; this one is just a line-scab that never seems to heal and I found that apt—the movie's all about a guy, Pat Solatano, Jr., whose lost everything and wants to get it back, despite that losing it might have been the best thing that ever happened to him. He's undiagnosed bi-polar, but he keeps wanting to return to the halcyon days when he didn't know he was bi-polar and was married to Nikki (Brea Bee), a schoolteacher, and was living a fairly normal life, or as normal as bi-polar can be, undiagnosed or not.

When he gets out of the Baltimore Psychiatric Hospital, he's focused on getting his old life back—he's whipped himself into shape, goes (reluctantly) to a therapist, stays on (reluctantly) his meds, and is determined to make himself the man Nikki wants him to be—there's just that little thing about the restraining order and the fact that he caught her having sex with a school administrator. And that he caught them making love to their wedding song which was Stevie Wonder's "My Cherie Amour," which sends him into an "episode" every time he hears it.

And there's that focus issue. He's not kidding himself anymore, but his constant stream of truthiness, socially correct or not, keeps getting him into trouble, with his folks (Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver), his brother (Shea Whigham), his pal Ronnie (John Ortiz) and Ronnie's wife Veronica (Julia Stiles)—who just happens to still be friends with Nikki. Pat, Jr. latches on to them to try and make contact with his ex, and, to do so, agrees to have dinner with them. Also invited is Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), Veronica's sister, who has issues of her own, still grieving from the death of her policeman-husband.

Pat and Tiffany do NOT get along at dinner, and only connect over their mutual history with anti-depressants. That seems to be enough for Tiffany, as she announces she's had enough family time and asks Pat to walk her home. They share enough information there for Tiffany to be repulsed by Pat, and for Pat to think Tiffany is crazy.  

But, then, Pat thinks everybody is crazy (except for himself).

And...he might be right (except for the last part). He's very quick to point out the eccentricities in others, probably because he possesses those traits himself. He notes his Dad's OCD—he goes through rituals while watching each Philadelphia Eagles game, as he's taken to book-making since losing his job, and has a sports fanatics' passion for football (and probably more so as he's been banned for life from the stadium). In Pat's mind, everybody is dysfunctional, because Pat's mind is dysfunctional. While reading the books on Kiki's syllabus, he tosses "A Farewell to Arms" through his attic window for its downer ending. And his own obsession with his ex-wife becomes a means towards an end for Tiffany when she offers to sneak a letter to Nikki for him—if he'll be her partner in a dance competition.

The director is David O. Russell, who also adapted the book (by Matthew Quick) and did a brilliant job cataloging family feuds in The Fighter. Family seems to be his forte, mining the mania for subtle comedy while not diminishing the seriousness of the hysteria bubbling under the surface. And Russell imposes enough energy in his direction and editing that he invigorates the already simmering outbursts the performers put into it. De Niro we already know can pull a manic act for both comedy and drama and Wilkins manages to keep a look of fret even when happy. The ones who surprise are Lawrence, who's cute as a button and volatile as a cougar in a surprising performance, and Cooper who has a crazy flame in his eyes throughout. His outbursts never surprise; it's his semi-even keel that is interesting to watch, and worry about.*

Yes, they're crazy. But, in Russell's world-scheme, everybody is in the U.S. of OCD, whether the obsession is sports, gambling, love, and competition. And Russell does a nice job of turning the dark side of rom-coms before the camera, and making decided call-backs to the past for his ending. Despite our relationships with the past and flirtations with the future, hope still vaults eternal in the perpetual grasping for something better, in the hope of no longer clinging to what was.

One suspects, after the movie is over, that that tell-tale scar will start to disappear.

* In the same scheme of things, Russell has cast Chris Tucker as one of Pat's fellow hospital incarcerees.  It's the best performance Tucker has ever given, subtle, scary and controlled. Anybody who's seen his other work, knows what he's capable of  and the effect here is like watching Jerry Lewis do drama, but without the self-awareness and ego.