Our cultural landscape is filled with sequels, remakes and attempts to squeeze every last drop out of established IP. So the prospect of a TV series based on David Nicholls’ 2009 weepy romance One Day was not the most exciting prospect. Not least because the novel had already been adapted for the screen, starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess in 2011, and had been met with decidedly mixed reviews.
But Netflix’s witty and heartstoppingly romantic series proved to be one of the year’s best and most moving shows. In lesser hands, the format could have come across as gimmicky – given its charting of two decades of the relationship of privileged cad Dexter (Leo Woodall) and working-class artistically inclined Emma (a star-making turn from the delightful Ambika Mod), with each episode set a year apart on 15 July, starting in 1988 when the two met at the University of Edinburgh. But with the team behind it including Nicholls and Three Girls’ Nicole Taylor, the material was handled with such care that the frequent needle drops on hits by the Verve, N-Trance and Cornershop – and even the more brazen nods to nostalgia (80s puffed sleeves, chunky Nokias, phone booths being used as more than public toilets) – came across as artful, joyous time stamping. Mod and Woodall’s performances were pitch-perfect and their rare chemistry had you hoping for a happily-ever-after every step of the way. Word of mouth spread like wildfire, and despite not having the star power of many Netflix properties, it became the most watched series on the platform the week after its release.
This was partly due to the way the show explored the characters’ lives independent of one another – contrasting their differences in gender, race and socioeconomic status – and the way they are treated by the world. While Emma struggled to make her dreams of being a published writer come true, we saw Dexter fail upwards into a career in media hosting a gaudy talkshow while swigging vodka from a water bottle – but such is the strength of the characterisation, he was never less than sympathetic. It diverged from the source material in making Emma a woman of colour without it ever feeling tacked on. It informed the early moments of their power dynamic, with Dexter presuming that her unwillingness to sleep with him is a “religion thing”. Then, as their paths diverged, we saw that when it comes to making a success of themselves this is not a level playing field, as Dexter became a hard-partying TV star while Emma struggled to make ends meet as a waitress. When Emma’s writing career eventually takes off, she has had to work twice as hard as Dexter despite clearly being the cleverer and more talented of the pair.
With the book and the film’s combined audiences, many came to the show knowing the big twist – but that didn’t drain any life from this tale of tentative romance. All love and all existence is finite and One Day elegantly reminded us that it really is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. Portrayals of grief never tipped into mawkish or melodramatic territory, instead giving viewers a window into the characters’ attempts to grapple with the rituals and contradictions of mourning, as we saw Dexter clinging to the despair, “too scared to change it” as moving forward would mean finally accepting the loss. It was a show best watched with a family-size pack of tissues, but never felt emotionally manipulative. Instead, it was a romance born of a true connection between two lives edging forward, scarred by the battle wounds of existence – but not defined by them.
Perhaps the cruellest thing about One Day was not the tragedies contained within it but that our time with Dexter and Emma came to an end at all. That perhaps in some other reality, this show could continue for numerous seasons, with each year of our lives letting us check in with the pair. But alas their fate was pre-ordained by Nicholls 15 years ago and not even the mighty Netflix overlords could rewrite it. So while we all grieve that the sun has set on One Day, there are still many reasons to feel hopeful. Leo Woodall, who is as hunky as he is talented, is about to star in the latest Bridget Jones film as the eponymous character’s love interest. Ambika Mod, an actor who has proved so charming she could sell tickets to watch her read the phone book, is set to star in the literary adaptation of Alex Dahl’s Playdate for Disney+ (funnily enough where her co-star will be the lead of the One Day film adaptation, Jim Sturgess). But best of all, One Day will continue to be there for us on Netflix, as an eminently rewatchable show that defied all cynical expectations – and proved to be far more than a brazen IP cash grab.