There was a moment, maybe half an hour into One Day, when I realized: This is how this movie is going to go. What appears to be a formula is in fact a formula, and I am trapped in it for the next 80 minutes. Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Dexter (Jim Sturgess) meet in college and almost hook up—she's more into it than he is, because he is a charming playboy and she is a writerly dork. (Turns out if you give Anne Hathaway weird glasses and bad clothes she actually does look pretty frumpy and unbangable.) The date—THIS IS IMPORTANT—is July 15. The next scene takes place a year later. On July 15. Can you guess the date of the following scene? How about the next one? (Wikipedia explains that July 15 is St. Swithin's Day, a sort of British equivalent to Groundhog Day that predicts the weather for the next 40 days. As a metaphor, this is too dumb to consider further.) by Alison Hallett