The day in “One Day” is July 15, when Emma and Dexter, about to graduate from college, tumble into bed, grope awkwardly but venture no further, and declare that they will “just be friends.” From there the date — St. Swithin’s Day, when the English look for signs of what their weather will be for the next 40 days of summer — becomes the film’s conceit: Emma and Dex will meet or talk every July 15. The couple, well played by Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway, are a study in contrasts: He’s posh, rich and easygoing, a magnet for the babes he beds serially; she’s working class, a little mousey, uptight, lacking in confidence, caustic in flashes. Sturgess has no problem playing pretty and rich; there is something of Hugh Grant in him. For Hathaway, mousey and English is more difficult: She hides her large, luminous eyes behind big, round spectacles and adopts an accent from somewhere — the location shifts and finally disappears altogether — in North England. Tediously, this couple is the last to figure out they are destined for each other. Dex playboys around London; Emma loses all ambition while waitressing in a Mexican restaurant (doubtless based on the famous one in Covent Garden) in sombrero and boots and gives up her ambition, writing. But July 15 survives: They even take a beach holiday together, but Emma’s rules of non-engagement yield platonic skinny-dipping.They still don’t get it. Act two is about character development. Dex, a rather nasty drunk and druggie, now, becomes famous as the host of a dumb TV variety show; Emma gets a teacher’s certificate and a live-in boyfriend (played by a very fine Ian Spall), one of those physically awkward, overgrown puppy types with neither sophisticated looks nor timing. (He is a very bad would-be comedian.) Dex loses his mother (a wonderful Patricia Clarkson) to cancer and enters an iffy marriage with an adulterous wife. Both Dex and Emma are getting older, although the only changes seem to be their hairstyles. Finally in the third act, Emma has become a successful author and — throwing off her ugly duckling routine — a swan; Dex is drug and wife free. They meet in Paris where she is working on a book and a new boyfriend, and voila, here comes the big kiss, the one we’ve been waiting for through oh, so many Julys. But where most writers and filmmakers would have stopped there, we push on through some more years and then get gobsmacked, literally out of nowhere, and invited to shed copious tears in a melodramatic but effective ending. So “One Day” is a film that actually gathers momentum as it rolls by. But 20 July days spread over 20 years is a long slog and a long time to wait for the payoff we always knew was coming and the ending we didn’t. The premise works much better in the book, since we’re used to chapters dividing action. Here it can seem tortured and constricting. “One Day” isn’t a bad movie; it’s just not as good as it should have been. “One Day” is showing in Millerton, Great Barrington and Torrington. It is rated PG-13.
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Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
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Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
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