Netflix’s One Day is a perfect, bittersweet romcom binge

One Day
★★★★★
Netflix

Even if you’ve read the multi-million selling 2009 novel One Day by David Nicholls (or seen the awful 2011 film in which Anne Hathaway massacres a northern English accent), you should still come to this new adaptation braced for heartbreak.

Mod and Woodall have incredible chemistry.Credit: Netflix

The streaming format is a perfect fit for Nicholls’ long-game love story; over 14 half-hour episodes, it follows Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall), from first meeting on their university graduation night in Edinburgh in 1988, through to their final chapter (no spoilers) in 2007.

After spending graduation night together (but not sleeping together) the unlikely pair, Dex being the campus heartthrob toff and Emma the studious socialist, remain friends, vowing to catch up every year on the same day: St Swithin’s Day on July 15. Each episode features at least one of those years as their lives head in different directions.

Emma, from working-class Leeds, is a fierce idealist, while the self-assured Dexter comes from a wealthy family in the Cotswolds. Emma wants to change the world as a writer, while Dexter’s post-grad plans don’t extend beyond summering in Europe and hooking up with women.

In the first year after graduation, Emma is travelling regional England with an earnest theatre collective (called, hilariously, Sledgehammer Theatre), that specialises in “original political devised work”, while Dexter is shagging his way across the Continent, much to the disappointment of his mother, played by Essie Davis.

Woodall and Mod in One Day, a perfectly bingeable romcom.Credit: Netflix

A few years/partners/jobs on and they both find themselves in London inhabiting totally different worlds. Emma is trying to make it as a writer while working at a tacky Mexican restaurant, while Dexter lands a gig as a TV presenter on the kind of laddish program that was big on 90s British TV.

But they’re still best mates who might, just might, still be more. Until Dex’s celebrity lifestyle changes everything and there are a few years without contact.

But around that falling-out are downs and ups, beach holidays, almost-kisses and countless what-ifs, as the will-they-won’t-they trope meanders across the years, a constant backdrop to the quotidian and the existential moments that add up to a life.

This adaptation remains faithful to Nicholls’ book. He’s an executive producer on the series, and wrote the penultimate episode.

It’s full of sharply written badinage, slick production design and small details such as the books Emma chooses to take to the beach.

Plus Mod and Woodall have compelling chemistry. Mod, whose biggest role so far was in This Is Going To Hurt, and Woodall, whose breakout was in White Lotus’s second season, are both note-perfect, convincing no matter what stage of their relationship.

Woodall is sympathetic even as his self-destructive behaviour threatens their friendship (One Day is as much a paean to friendship as a love story) and Mod is at once sensitive and kind and steely and deadpan; it’s hard to believe this is her first lead role. There’s also a terrific supporting cast, including Amber Grappy as Emma’s best friend Tilly, Jonny Weldon as Ian, one of Emma’s boyfriends and Eleanor Tomlinson as Dexter’s partner Sylvie, and a fun, nostalgic soundtrack that ranges across years and genres, from Vivaldi to Public Enemy, all perfectly pitched. But you are warned - and I say this as a non romcom aficionado - there will be tears.

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