Calm yourself, folks: Anne Hathaway does, in fact, pull off an English accent rather well in One Day, thus not tanking it single-handedly. That alone is cause for celebration. In fact, so far as romance movies go, this is one of the better ones I've seen in recent memory.

Emma (Hathaway) and Dexter (Sturgess) meet on July 15th, and the story of their friendship-turned-romance is told through peeks into various July 15ths over two decades. Certainly an interesting way to tell a story, but doesn't afford much in the way of character development -- what happens throughout the year? Each anniversary felt like playing catch-up into Em and Dex's lives. Even better, each year offered a chance for nostalgia. The wardrobe department nailed every single time period, down to the pinky-brown lipstick shades of the 90s.

The good news is that the same person who wrote the novel on which One Day is based also wrote the script. No better person to mold a story for the silver screen than the owner of that story, David Nicholls. It's also really tough filming a movie that spans over decades if for no other reason than believably aging the actors. Thankfully, Hathaway and Sturgess had no problems maturing their characters within their respective performances, which are as nuanced as a somewhat melodramatic and gimmicky romance film can be. It's honestly a miracle that Emma, a graceful, patient woman, finds it in her heart to suffer Dex through his douchebag years. That's love, right?

Another strong point is that the movie doesn't follow the traditional meet-then-fall-in-love timeline. It's realistic about the fact that sometimes it takes an absurdly long time for two people to finally come together. Sometimes they fall in love with other people, sometimes they marry other people, sometimes kids are born, sometimes reality couldn't be further from the archetypal fairy tale love story. That's life. And that's One Day: a fictional, albeit very grounded, pleasant love story, especially for romance movie aficionados.