“One Day” is a heart-achingly sombre and nostalgic tale

A review of One Day (2024 Netflix adaptation) written by Nancy Johnson-Hunt, Popular Culture Scholar and Cultural Strategist

A devastatingly intimate portrayal on love, loss and desire. That’s how I would describe Netflix’s recent page-to-screen adaptation, One Day. Based on the 2009 literary bestseller by David Nicholls of the same name, Netflix’s limited series traverses the lives of strangers-to-besties Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodhall) and Emma Morely (Ambika Mod). After a chance encounter at a university graduation party, the ripples of their friendship are documented in a series of fated milestones. This story reveals much over the course of 20 years, leaving fans of the novel with just enough screen time to submerge their angst-craving, nostalgic selves into fourteen poignant episodes.

Unlike the 2011 recreation featuring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, this Netflix adaptation incredulously does the book justice. That’s because the characters of Dex and Emma were impeccably played. The leads, Ambika Mod from BBC’s This is Going to Hurt and Leo Woodall of White Lotus fame, converge in a heart-breaking fashion. Their onscreen chemistry intersects on matters of class, culture, romance and everything in between. From their first meet-cute, their adversarial qualities make room for a life-long attachment. Eventually, they settle into the mundane folds of life, at times together but mostly evolving outside of each other.

The checks and balances taken to provide a changing cross-section of diverse viewers are evident. It should be noted that as part of this adaptation, Emma’s character in the original novel was never South Asian. In a recent press interview on Josh Smith’s Reign podcast, Mod expresses that it was “liberating to play Emma, and not once was her race a factor, or an issue”. Although her character has a backstory, her heritage is simply embedded into her role, a symbol of who she is and where she comes from. As a South Asian myself, it is refreshing not to have all the interstitial spaces of our belonging exposed for everyone to dissect. Although some attention could have been paid around fleshing out these cultural nuances further, her discernibly South Asian features and mannerisms are yet another win for representation in my book. She understands the exclusivity of Leo’s (very white) world in comparison to her Northern working-class upbringing. Her bookish qualities balance out Leo’s privileged upper-class ignorance, and naturally, the two characters mirror a system steeped in social tension, particularly telling of Britain in the 1990s to early 2000s. You could even say the same for today.

Over the course of the show, Mod’s character development went from insufferable whinge (understandably so) to a multi-faceted woman. Breaking out of her comfort zone,  Emma learns to advocate for her own desires, both professional and sexually speaking; she eventually transforms her talents into the life she desires from the very beginning.  She may not be understood to be “conventionally” attractive, at least by existing Eurocentric standards, but she’s markedly beautiful on several levels, intellectual and beyond. This is significant because even Mod reflects on Emma as a choice character. That being brown and young and not having accessible representation on screen works into the fissures of our subconscious and asks us what being beautiful implies. For me, it was refreshing to see a brown woman simply play a woman, someone who could be all things: candid, endearing, pretty, petty even, and still have the opportunity to be a leading love interest.

Dexter, on the other hand, chases fame and fortune and experiences the trials of a washed-up television presenter. Leaving his uncle-necking White Lotus character by the wayside, Woodhall’s representation of Dex leaves you both angry and heartbroken. Not because he’s not up to the mark but because he’s irritatingly convincing at bringing that quintessential English upper-class male arrogance to the foreground. Dex’s larger-than-life persona is quickly remedied by Emma’s brooding nature. He is, for all intents and purposes, a man who has been written to the edge of all his capabilities and all his flaws, rendering him as humanly earnest as possible. He does almost everything wrong and then some, and yet you’re still kind of rooting for him. He fails to control his impulses, giving into numbing substances for the majority of the show, but Dex is who he is, and by changing his (literal and figurative) character would change the course of his story.

Both characters metabolise grief and love in completely disparate ways. In the end, however, both have a desire to release themselves from the heaviness of adult life that can feel all too encompassing and with that, an enduring and tender story materialises. With that said, it does leave me questioning how balanced this portrayal of Dex and Emma truly was, provided the unfolding events of their relationship. His losses are frequently centred, perhaps more heavily than Emma’s. However, despite this minor critique, their relationship has a sense of symmetry that can’t be found in your everyday pop culture fairy tale.

It would be remiss of me to not say that this story can be heart-achingly sombre at times, is also something of nostalgic tale. Laden with heavy-hitting tunes, a simpler time with little technological influence, and a hint of what we older Millennials feel has been lost by way of social media. A yearning for something raw because we all feel a bit wounded at the moment. Which is why it feels like the right time to be watching a love story that feels honest. Bear in mind this story is not a linear race to the finish line but one that takes you on an indelible journey that haunts the recesses of your heart long after you’ve consumed it. But…One Day is a cornucopia of memories, a series that makes magic out of melancholy. It is an absolute must-watch.

One Day is now available on Netflix