Streaming on: Netflix
Episodes viewed: 14 of 14
You can’t really root for a relationship unless the odds are monumentally stacked against it. Never has there been a stronger case than in the first chapter of One Day, the 14-episode Netflix series adapted from David Nicholls’ bestselling romance novel. Fuelled by booze from a night out in Edinburgh, where they’re attending university, working-class Leeds native Emma (Ambika Mod) and moneyed lad Dexter (Leo Woodall) head home together, only for their agenda to shift surprisingly from spontaneous sex to a long conversation about their aspirations and the kind of deep stuff usually reserved for much closer acquaintances. When they’re forced to part ways, the pair vow to meet up annually on the same day, and more-or-less stick to their word.
Mod and Woodall are relative newcomers: the former a standout in the Ben Whishaw-fronted This Is Going To Hurt, the latter part of the boisterous ensemble of The White Lotus Season 2. Here, regardless of whether they’re sharing scenes or navigating big character developments alone, they are both remarkable.
These two performances pull you in every time, encouraging you to relish the pain and passion and partnership.
Mod imbues Emma’s hardy, judgmental-but-never-unkind temperament with unbridled warmth, her eyes always searching for something, even when it’s not required in the story. The series neatly spotlights one St Swithin’s day per episode, and in one solo chapter, Mod sails through Emma’s compact arc — one full of reckoning, vulnerability and growth — in a way you simply can’t take your eyes off. Woodall has a simpler but no less powerful trajectory to work with, as Dex’s rise to fame as a TV presenter comes at great personal cost. A scene in which he leaves a devastated voicemail for Emma from his hometown is one of the show’s most impactful moments, and cements Woodall as a homegrown star.
The pace is occasionally languorous, and the series’ runtime a little too generous, but it’s elegantly adapted by the show’s creator, Nicole Taylor, and the attention to detail, from the ’90s London interiors to the very specific stack of books Emma carries with her on holiday, only fortifies the couple’s world and makes the years-spanning storytelling smoother. The odds are undoubtedly stacked against Dex and Emma, their backgrounds and priorities throwing them in and out of each other's orbits, but these two performances pull you in every time, encouraging you to relish the pain and passion and partnership. Root for them, cry for them, love them.