One Day

Presumably, audiences are supposed to relate to the main characters in One Day, a story of love unrequited that spans more than two decades.

Yet it’s hard to find much of an emotional connection with these two self-conscious, bickering Brits who meet on a one-night stand in college and spend more than 10 years denying they’re in love, then realize they’re perfect for one another. Maybe it’s because no one else can stand either one of them.

That might be a bit unfair to the well-intentioned characters in this adaptation of the 2009 novel by David Nicholls (who also wrote the screenplay). What’s more at fault is the episodic structure that might have worked on the page but feels like a gimmick on screen.

Specifically, the film takes place on July 15 of each year from the first meeting of Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) in 1988 until the present. Each year offers a snapshot into the progression of their friendship and into the lives and insecurities they experience separately.

Emma settles into a modest career as a schoolteacher and a life with a comedian (Rafe Spall) she doesn’t love. Dexter, meanwhile, is a late-night television host who never finds the right woman and struggles to impress his terminally ill mother (Patricia Clarkson) and overbearing father (Ken Stott). Both Dexter and Emma realize later that they might find that elusive happiness in each other, something they’ve been denying for years.

There are a few affecting scenes, but the mechanical structure of the story makes it seem more like a countdown or a checklist than a realistic exploration of contemporary romance. Hathaway is miscast and struggles with her accent, and her chemistry with Sturgess is only lukewarm.

The film, directed by Lone Scherfig (An Education), certainly was a challenge for the costume and makeup departments, among others, who aged the characters one year at a time and recreated the period annually between 1988 and the present. Such thoughts cross the mind when the story grinds toward an inevitable result that moviegoers won’t care much about anyway.

One Day is a disappointment considering the talent on both sides of the camera. It might find an audience with fans of the source material, many of who will probably admit it should have stayed there.

Rated PG-13, 108 minutes.