One Day
Focus Features | Release Date: August 19, 2011 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
48
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
24
Negative:
4
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
EmpireIan FreerAug 22, 2011
It may not truly capture the complexities of its source material but One Day is funny, winning and entertaining - if little else. Read full review
60
NPRElla TaylorAug 18, 2011
One Day ends up fatally compromised by its glib recourse to death and cancer as moral wake-up calls. Read full review
60
VarietyJustin ChangAug 17, 2011
On a moment-by-moment basis, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess make this long-arc love story viable, sometimes even vital. But the structural conceit proves more reductive than expansive, the big picture too overdetermined to really sweep the viewer away. Read full review
55
MovielineStephanie ZacharekAug 19, 2011
We need to wait nearly 20 years for the romance in Lone Scherfig's One Day to get cooking, and for long stretches it seems as if we're watching this particular pair of nonstarters hem and haw in real time. Read full review
50
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonAug 19, 2011
One Day fails to make us care about the young couple at its center. Read full review
50
New York PostLou LumenickAug 19, 2011
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. Read full review
50
The New York TimesA.O. ScottAug 18, 2011
Her (Ms. Scherfig) eccentric eye and offbeat rhythm sustain One Day through its stretches of banality and mitigate some of its flaws. Read full review
50
TimeMary PolsAug 18, 2011
Even in the skillful hands of director Lone Scherfig, the effect is disjointed. The characters that Nicholls brought so cunningly to life in the book feel rushed through a timeline, tied to an agenda. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie RickeyAug 18, 2011
As in "An Education," Scherfig's settings are unshowy, imparting period flavor without overwhelming what is, ultimately, an underwhelming film. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesAug 18, 2011
Watchable but not very gripping. Patricia Clarkson does her best with an underwritten part as the young man's terminally ill mother, and British actor Ken Stott is excellent as the grieving husband she leaves behind. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 18, 2011
What proved tasty in book form comes across a little more like work in the movie. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubTasha RobinsonAug 17, 2011
The ultimate end of the story reveals that it's all about Sturgess' suffering, which just isn't that compelling a topic. Given its lack of center and balance, the film might more appropriately be called "One Dude." Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelRoger MooreAug 17, 2011
This episodic romance works in fits and starts, and captures a bittersweet faux British turn by Anne Hathaway, plainly mismatched in being paired with real-life Brit Jim Sturgess. Read full review
50
ObserverUna LaMarcheAug 17, 2011
It's a sweet, harmless, meandering tale with an engaging gimmick, but a great love story - or a great movie - it's not. Read full review
50
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 17, 2011
Some ideas simply work better on book pages, rather than on film where illogic is exposed. Read full review
50
Village VoiceKarina LongworthAug 16, 2011
For an entry in a genre of films that frequently work as guilty pleasures even at their most formulaic, One Day doesn't offer much pleasure. Read full review
42
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 19, 2011
The problem with this year-by-year structure is that the slow crawl to the end can seem agonizing if the film isn't engaging. And One Day, despite strenuous attempts by all involved to make us laugh, cry, and laugh-cry, is more likely to induce winces. We've seen it all before – and better. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumAug 17, 2011
A drippy, uninvolving movie adaptation. Read full review
40
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 22, 2011
In short, this popular love story isn't much of a story, and falls badly short on love. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 19, 2011
Now CDL aficionados have One Day, though it is a tedious addition to this subspecies of rom-com, despite Anne Hathaway's efforts to make us fall for her regardless of the setting. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyAug 18, 2011
As so often happens with love, what you hope for is not even close to what you get, and in this case we are left with a heartbreaking disappointment of a film. Read full review
40
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 18, 2011
In this frustrating fizzle, the friendship does keep struggling to change into a love affair. But year after year, July 15 after July 15, it's the same old same old - two increasingly tedious people talking self-conscious talk. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith UhlichAug 17, 2011
That all sours by the time of the film's "shocking" climax, which is so hilariously telegraphed, it plays like a Benny Hill gag rather than a tear-duct stoker. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicRandy CordovaAug 17, 2011
The idea of dropping in on characters at different points in their lives can work - see "Same Time, Next Year" for how it should be done. Here, it simply puts a distance between the audience and two characters that aren't that interesting to start with. Read full review
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