Em and Dex. Dex and Em.

I am always that type of person who blurt out saying "I read the book!" while being in the middle of a conversation about movie. I know it sounds annoying for some people and only Lord above knows what they think of me. Perhaps, it makes me sound like a cocky bookworm who's bragging anywhere about her reading habit and so on. But I am not being cocky, I swear. It's just I simply prefer reading to watching. Doesn't mean I don't do movies either. I watch a lot of movies, and I worship some. But if there are movie form and book form of a story, I'll prefer the book form. Why? Because following a story through hundreds pages of book surely involves more emotional feeling than a two hour movies. And I love being emotionally entwined to fictional characters.

But, there are times when I fall in love with a movie before the book. One of those rare cases is One Day. I fell in love with the movie at first sight. Frankly, the only reason why I watched the movie at first place was for the fact that Jim Sturgess stars it. I am a hardcore fans of him a long time back then since 21 and I don't want to miss a single movie of him for he doesn't involve in movies much. But then the reason why I love the movie go far beyond just for the sake of Jim Sturgess. Because this movie, isn't just another cliche friendzone love story. I root for the rapidly moving scenes; from 80s to 90s to 00s. I love the bitter-sweetness chemistry between Em and Dex; the fact that they grow together and complete each other.

All those fanciness then triggered me to buy the novel. They hadn't translated it into Bahasa at that time and even if they had I still would prefer the English version, because I was afraid that the translating process could deprive the wit of the novel. So I spent a month reading it. Compared to my usual reading time which is only days-count, it was a bloody long time. Nevertheless, it was once of my happiest reading experience. If the movie made me shed tears, the book made me howling a desperate silent "WHHHYYYY?" all the time. Why can't just tell her you love her, Dex?! Why don't just let your walls down, Em?! My whole emotions was smartly summarized by a comment of Jonathan Coe upon the novel. "You really do put the book down with the hallucinatory feeling that they've become as well known to you as your closest friends".

But then, I am afraid I should say that Jim Sturgess played Dexter Mayhew way better than Anne Hathaway did Emma Morley. And oh, there's a thing that the movie missed! The movie didn't state Dexter's birthday while the book did. His birthday is...... 1st of August, we share our birthday!!

“And then she frowned, and shook her head, then put her arms around him once more, pressing her face into his shoulder,

making a noise that sounded almost like rage.
'What's up?' he asked.
'Nothing. Oh, nothing. Just...' She looked up at him.

'I thought I'd finally got rid of you.'
'I don't think you can.' he said”

P.S: The book picture is mine, while others are courtesy of onedaymovie.co.uk