I went to see One Day last night. Having read (and really enjoyed) the book, I was in two minds whether to go see the film or not. Surprisingly, the film was fantastic. They kept it quite true to the book (David Nicholls wrote the screenplay), although trying to fit 20 different years into the same film meant that a lot of the detail of the story was missed.

The best part of the film was Jim Sturgess as Dexter – he played the part exactly as I imagined it when I read it, and just as in the book, you can’t help but like Dexter even when you’re not supposed to. He got the last few years of the story spot on – I actually found some of the scenes quite difficult to watch.

Rafe Spall was a good choice to play Ian, he had the look, and the ‘comedy’ was just right, I don’t think they showed as much of him in the film as I would have expected, but I guess that’s what happens when you have to condense the book into less than 2 hours. Although at 1hr 47 mins, it’s not that long, so they probably could have made it longer.

So that brings us to Anne Hathaway. I usually like her, but I think the directors of the film made the wrong decision picking her to play a girl from Leeds. They should have either had her do a London accent, or just no accent at all. Her accent swung from a ridiculously terrible attempt at a broad Yorkshire accent, to sounding vaguely Scottish, to sounding like she’s not even trying an accent at all. If I’m honest, I would have preferred them to pick a northern actress for the part (but maybe I’m just biased).

Now if you’ve read the book, you know how it ends (I’m not going to spoil it if you haven’t). I thought that they might have changed the ending, but I’m very glad they didn’t. Although when ‘it’ happened, even though I was expecting it, I was still as shocked as I was when I read it in the book.

I think when it comes out on DVD, I’ll probably watch it again and see if it’s as good the second time round. If you’ve seen the film and read the book, let me know what you think – was it what you expected?

If you’re interested, here is the film trailer: