Chemistry can make or break a great romcom – and One Day doesn’t have it

People have fallen in love with One Day. It’s the romcom du jour, with fans around the world enthusing about the series that follows the rocky relationship between Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) over nearly 20 years.

It was the top show on Netflix in the UK when it premiered in February, and Kim Kardashian recommended it to her millions of Instagram followers. Along with that irresistible endorsement, David Nicholls’ 2009 novel, which has been translated into 40 languages and sold over 6 million copies, was boosted back onto bestseller lists after the series landed.

One Day traces the rocky romance between Emma (Ambika Mod) and Dex (Leo Woodall) over a 20-year period of their lives.Credit: Netflix

So it appears to have struck a chord, but while I share the enthusiasm for Nicholls’ beautifully calibrated, bittersweet book and the 2011 film adapted from it, I wish I shared the passion for the new series, in which one crucial element leaves me cold.

Made up of half-hour episodes, the 14-part series is celebrated by some as a shining example of the heady heights that the romantic-comedy genre can reach: that fabulous fizz that emanates from characters who seem to belong together but have a hard time getting there. We watch such stories longing for them to hook up. We hope for that first kiss, for strolls hand-in-hand in the sunshine, or romantic skinny dips before an exhilarated tumble into bed and eventually the happily ever after.

Yet good romcoms are regrettably rare. It’s a tricky genre to nail, requiring a frequently elusive, almost magical, mix of tone, timing, setting, humour, casting and chemistry. For me, that final, crucial element is sadly lacking in the new series: there’s just no spark.

I didn’t have that reaction to Nicholls’ cleverly crafted book, or to the sometimes unfairly maligned movie from a Nicholls screenplay directed by Lone Scherfig, who guides vibrant performances from Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. I believe in their attraction and their passion, but I’m not feeling it here: I find this couple unconvincing.

In the book and the film, Em and Dex seem destined to be together. The story follows their relationship from 1988, when they’re university students in Edinburgh, through the personal and professional challenges of their 20s and into their early 30s, looking in on them periodically on 15 July, St Swithin’s Day.

They’re very different personalities, as romcom couples tend to be. An avid reader of hefty, highly regarded literary novels, Emma’s quietly serious. She pedals energetically around on her bike, hoping to someday, somehow, change the world.

Dexter’s sociable and effortlessly charming, initially coasting through life and lacking specific ambitions, more inclined to travel the world and have a good time than burning with desire to change it. But after they get together, they click, enjoying and appreciating their differences until circumstances push them apart.

Yet from the start of the series, I didn’t feel that essential attraction. I didn’t believe that Dex was captivated by Em at college, when she was in her dowdy phase, when he’s supposedly disarmed and drawn to the spirited beauty hidden behind the big glasses and bad haircut.

Leo Woodall as Dexter and Ambika Mod as Emma in the new adaptation of David Nicholls’ romantic bestseller One Day.Credit: Matthew Towers/Netflix

It was a bit easier to accept later on, after he goes through several life-changing events and she seems to grow into her skin, becoming more self-possessed as she discovers her skills and strengths. But even then, there’s no fateful, fiery spark. This version of Em and Dex seems like characters who might turn out to be mates, trusted companions and confidantes, but never ’til-death-do-us-part lovers.

A couple of key sequences – in a Mexican restaurant and a maze – illustrate the problem. The restaurant scenes, which take place when the characters are in their early 20s, find Em as a frustrated waitress in a cheesy eatery. She’s asked to show new hire Ian (Jonny Weldon) the ropes and she does it with a rapid-fire roast of a tour that indicates her mastery of the job, her lack of illusions about it, her keen mind, sharp wit and natural vitality. Or at least it’s supposed to.

It certainly does in the film, where Hathaway brims with brio, bringing a lightness to her nimble navigation of the space and the delivery of the dialogue. It’s fast and funny, and Ian (Rafe Spall) is suitably dazzled.

In the series, though, Emma just seems sour and sullen, an impression accentuated when Dex – at that stage a TV star – drops by with his chic new girlfriend.

Feeling patronised and pitied, Em angrily accuses him of insensitivity, of lording his success – however brief and insubstantial it might be – over her humiliating failure. She might be right, but the tenor of the interaction is all wrong. Where she should appear smart and quippy, she’s resentful and judgmental.

In the maze scenes, the pair reconnects following years of estrangement after a bitter falling-out, and both of their lives have experienced significant changes. The occasion is the wedding of Em’s BFF, Tilly Killick (Amber Grappy), and, following a tentative reestablishment of contact, they escape the festivities to wander the hedge maze in the venue’s grounds.

A viewer should feel relief at the repair of the relationship, but also more than that: as they wander through that metaphor for life, with its false turns and concealed pathways, the atmosphere should feel electric.

We should be aching for the Big Kiss, that emphatic, euphoric lip lock, even as Dex’s date, Sylvie (Eleanor Tomlinson), waits impatiently for him inside. It should be a reunion in which they acknowledge what’s been lacking in their lives and what they’ve been longing for.

Instead it’s, well, nice. It feels like the meeting of two old pals, putting aside past grievances and enjoying an overdue catch-up.

Which is a pity because the series is not without its pleasures. Witty, well-observed and warm-hearted, it’s a lively journey through some seminal stages in life as the engaging characters, separately and together, navigate careers, thwarted ambitions, ill-fated affairs, and constructive and destructive choices.

But it does have a fundamental flaw – and it’s one that afflicts neither the book nor the film adaptation.

One Day streams on Netflix.

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