In "One Day" on Netflix, Love Looms Large
In "One Day" on Netflix, Love Looms Large
Falling in the fated friends-to-lovers romance trope, this Netflix adaptation is brilliant
It’s been a while since I committed so staunchly to a 14-episode season of a series and binged it in 2 sittings. With One Day, now streaming on Netflix, each episode is around 28 mins long, so that’s 392 minutes for the whole series which is roughly 6 and half hours. This translates to ~3 hours a day of screen time over the course of 2 sittings. And it’s worth it.
Grade: A+ (Acting, Pacing, Story, Locale(s), 1980s-90s setting)
One Day cast a spell on its legion of viewers soaring to the #1 spot on Netflix around Valentine’s Day and even dethroning the popular reality TV based show Love Is Blind, and that’s largely to do with the chemistry between the series’ leads, Ambika Mod (This is Going to Hurt) and Leo Woodall (“the nephew” in S2 White Lotus).
Right Person, Wrong Time
If you’re unfamiliar with the premise of the David Nicholls’ book, which was made into a 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, the studious and serious Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) meets the disarming, yet sincere Dexter/Dex Mayhew (Leo Woodall) the last day of undergrad at University of Edinburgh at a graduation party. It turns out he had always harbored a slight crush on her and she’s instantly attracted to him because he’s Leo Woodall.
They spend a sexless night together (but not for lack of want) and a more meaningful next day together talking to one another, flirting and having deeper discussions which ignites mutual attraction. Their day abruptly ends with the arrival of Dex’s parents at his apartment. Dexter is unable to properly introduce Emma to his parents and who can blame him entirely. The relationship is all too new. It’s a bit of bad timing as he’s going abroad the next day and graduation means they won’t come back to Edinburgh next term. As the awkward goodbye ensues with his parents watching, it’s evident that Emma is looking to Dex for some friends /lovers validation that neither of them have, at this very new and tender moment in their relationship. When Dex runs after her, we only see a part of this encounter with the rest of it being explained in the final episode. No spoilers here.
Dex and Emma do agree to meet every July 15th for as long as they can which spans twenty+ years from the kind of play-adulting stage that one partakes in, say in their 20s through to the anguish of “hurry up and adult” expectations of your early 30s. They grow up together and Emma, being the more direct and aspirational of the two, demands that Dex want more for himself in the category of fulfillment. Dex relies on his good looks and fun personality to climb the MTV-esque ladder of the 90s in the UK but succumbs to drugs and alcohol. His is a party lifestyle. Emma waivers after graduation for a few years, but ultimately finds purpose in teaching drama and later in her writing. In the same way that Emma doesn’t let Dex off lightly with his life goals, he challenges her to pursue her passion and not use the tedium of adult responsibilities as the excuse for not demanding more of her life.
Class Differences
Dex is from a well-to-do, established posh family. He’s privileged and this affects the way he sees the world and his lack of burden when it comes to striving for more. Emma is the hard-working child of Indian immigrants from up north in Yorkshire. She can’t afford to not take her life seriously and in being with someone like Dex, while it’s frustrating at times to relate to him, there’s also the part where she’s living vicariously through the ease with which he approaches life. While the class differences are present in the book and in the 2011 series, this adaptation chose to cast Emma as a woman of color which I think allowed the narrative to be elevated to a more thoughtful place.
It’s no coincidence that when Dex does settle down with someone, she’s also from a privileged, upper-class white family. This is what is expected, at least what Dex thinks he should strive for - stability and respectability - but that relationship isn’t a love match, after all.
Emma Morley Backlash
In the weeks since the release of the series, there’s been Emma Morley backlash on the internet. While some have bashed her for being “boring,” others have questioned her ethics (She has a consensual relationship with a married principal at the school she teaches at.), and some even her color. She’s “too sweet,” and how dare she wait for Dex even though she’s choosing to be with him from a place of agency and choice, as opposed to desperation. Per Ambika Mod’s interview with Glamour, she tackled this criticism of Emma with grace and keen insight:
The romance genre can be a double-edged sword at points. For a long time, it has not been a genre that's been respected because it’s mainly for women, and now it's having a sort of resurgence. But it always seems to be the male characters and the male protagonists and the male actors who are elevated from having done a rom-com, and it's the female characters who don't get that same recognition, who don't get that same elevation, who don't get that same moment. And it's a really twisted double standard that shouldn't be the case.
And, you know, I think you also sort of have a double whammy in this adaptation of it where I’m, you know…a lot of people who know the story and read the book or watched the film, probably didn't picture an Emma who looked like me, and I've seen some of that more critical reception. But it's a tale as old as time. We just do not give female characters or just women in general the same respect as we do male characters, especially in the show when you've got two characters like Emma and Dex, who were so equal.
If You Dig One Day, Chances Are You Will Also Dig These:
A Netflix romance series from 2022 called From Scratch with Zoe Saldana which also featured a loved up couple up against very different backgrounds (and familial expectations) across multiple timelines and a few geographies.
Linklater’s Before Sunrise trilogy where two people (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) explore friendship spending just one day together over the course of many years and this develops into something deeper and more romantic.
Other Stuff I’m Watching (P.S. It’s Not Romance)
The Tourist S2 on Netflix. Season 1 was on Max. Both seasons are now streaming on Netflix. Jamie Dornan is “the man” without an identity who is wishing he never learned who he was. Danielle MacDonald as his partner and an ex cop who is trying to keep him alive and piece it all together. A tad of Coen Brothers’ style violence and depravity mixed with incisive humor.
Murder is Easy 2023 on Britbox (free trial) Agatha Christie’s BBC’s latest adaptation of the Miss Marple classic, sans Miss Marple, but with a good stand-in in David Jonsson (Industry) as the amateur sleuth who mysteriously meets a woman on a train who alludes to accidents in her town being actual murders. He goes to said town and sinister stuff happens.
Death and Other Details S1 on Hulu. It’s not great but as I miss an ensemble cast of amateur sleuths while I stew in my OMITB purgatory until Steve, Martin and Selena come back for a 4th season, this show while definitively “mid” does enough entertaining. The premise here is that murders happen on a cruise. Suspects start to line up. The series itself is too long with too many episodes but I’m too far gone to quit it now. If you’re looking for filler, then this show is it.
so much good stuff here. i loved One Day, like SO much. Enjoyed Murder is Easy (I may have recco'd it myself in Shine Bright HQ). I zipped through The Tourist Season 1, but somehow haven't gotten past the first episode of Season 2.