by Jeff Alan, Contributing Writer
The new Netflix limited series, One Day, brings the David Nicholls book to the small screen nearly 13 years after it was previously adapted into a to film starring Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway. The series stars Leo Woodall as Dexter and Ambika Mod as Emma, and each episode visits the same day, July 15, every year for 20 years and shows where each of them are in their lives.
It starts in 1988 at the Scottish University of Edinburgh, where the graduating class is celebrating with a bombastic and raucous party. At this party, Dexter and Emma meet by chance and begin to talk and flirt with each other, which leads to Emma inviting Dexter back to her apartment for a one-night stand. However, while they try to be physical with each other, they ultimately talk all night and share ideas until the sun comes up.
The next morning, they take a walk to Arthur’s Seat and climb all the way to the top of the hill and ponder their futures further. When they make it back into town – attempting to run back to Dexter’s flat to “finish what they started” the previous night – they are stopped by the sudden appearance of Dexter’s parents, who are in town to attend the graduation. They both agree to exchange contact information and stay in touch.
But a year later, they find themselves in two completely different places in their careers and their lives. Dexter now lives in Rome tutoring students who are studying abroad, and philandering with girls he teaches, while continuing to find his purpose and direction. Whereas Emma is traveling with a small theater group and trying to grow her acting career. The two have stayed in touch over the course of the year by writing letters, and they’ve seen each other a few times since: They have grown a strong friendship that persists throughout their varying activities and lives.
One Day is an absolute delight! The two leads are wonderful, Dexter being the carefree man looking for a purpose, and Emma being the thoughtful ambitious type of woman. The surrounding cast of the series is fine, but they aren’t really that noteworthy. Most of the focus is kept on Dexter and Emma, which pays well.
The next best part of One Day is the cinematography. It doesn’t do anything new or spectacular exactly, but the camera work tells their story as well as the writing does. And speaking of the writing, one of the best things Netflix has done was adapt this book into a series, as opposed to another film. The 2011 movie breezes through this story far too quickly, and it even cuts or changes things to fit the runtime. But the series adapts the story in a much better way, and stays a lot truer to the source material, which I appreciate.
Another couple highlights are the score and soundtrack, which pop up frequently. The score draws you into the intimate moments and evokes an emotional response when the two leads go through their hardest or most sensitive moments, and the soundtrack helps bring you into each year with nostalgic song choices that are always fun to hear!
The series is also a quick watch! It consists of 14 episodes – which is more than a typical season for Netflix – and each episode averages around 30 minutes, so it goes by pretty fast if you sit down and watch it in one sitting.
My only negative is my aforementioned point on the about the supporting cast not being all that impressive, but again, the focus is more on Dexter and Emma, so the supporting roles didn’t really phase me all that much.
One Day ends up hitting every story beat perfectly, and bringing out all of the happiness, sadness, and love that each character feels in the most cinematic way it can. The show does the source material justice, and left me feeling a sense of completion and satisfaction. It even made me want to revisit the book as well.
Rating: High Side of Liked It
One Day is currently streaming on Netflix
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