On February 8, Netflix premiered its new show One Day, which has already skyrocketed to the top of the most-streamed ranks all over the world while being the cause of many a crying session. That’s what I’d say is the standard One Day experience—no matter what format the story comes in.
Actors Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall star as the show’s two main characters, Emma “Em” Morley and Dexter “Dex” Mayhew. The plot of One Day follows the pair by telling the story of one precise day in their lives—July 15, also known as St. Swithin’s Day in England—from their first encounter to the next twenty years.
In those twenty years, ever since their meeting on their graduation day from the University of Edinburgh, the lives of Em and Dex ebb and flow together and apart through various jobs, successes and failures, friends and relationships. Underneath it all there’s the deep connection the two share, which never really disappears even though they try their best at times to erase it from their lives. All up until the story’s bittersweet ending, which is definitely one of those that stays with you for quite some time.
One Day was already brought to the screen once in 2011 with a movie whose main poster seemed to be everywhere, from budding Instagram feeds to Facebook walls. Then again, considering that Emma and Dexter were played by none other than Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess—back then of The Devil Wears Prada and Across the Universe fame—it wasn’t really something to complain about.
But even though the movie predates this new Netflix show, it wasn’t how the One Day story was first presented.
Going back to One Day’s origin
One Day is first and foremost a novel, published in 2009 by British novelist David Nicholls—who also adapted his book into a screenplay for the 2011 movie.
The novel, which sits at around a 3.82 rating on Goodreads, is structured so that each chapter of the book follows one of the many July 15s that happen in the lives of Emma and Dexter. According to a 2021 interview that Nicholls gave to the British newspaper The Guardian, this peculiar story structure was born out of an idea he had picked up from Tess of the D’Ubervilles, a pillar of the English novel by 19th-century author Thomas Hardy—that of a day that we perceive to be ordinary our whole life until it turns out that it’s not ordinary at all.
(featured image: Netflix)
