One Day, the TV adaptation of David Nicholls’ best-selling 2009 novel was released on Netflix earlier this month. A limited series of fourteen episodes, it documents the intersecting lives, friendship and love of Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew over almost twenty years.
Meeting by chance on graduation night in Edinburgh, the pair have an (almost) one-night stand and then proceed to spend the next day together. This sparks an unlikely friendship between two entirely opposite characters. Dexter, an overprivileged New Town boy who has had every advantage in life, is played unexpectedly endearingly by Leo Woodall, whilst Ambika Mod’s Emma is sharp, endlessly deadpan, and fiercely independent.
The two decades across which the story takes place allows us to bear witness to the fluctuations of the characters’ lives, both as individuals and as they work out their place together. Their friendship and romantic interest waxes and wanes over time as they move through life and establish their identities post-university. We watch their paths initially diverge as Emma struggles to navigate cash-strapped graduate life in London, whilst Dexter finds quick fame in the media industry. This dynamic eventually shifts as Emma finds later success as a writer whilst Dexter grapples with various personal and substance abuse issues.
The format of the TV adaptation as a limited series perfectly matches the episodic structure of the novel, maintaining the essence of the story much more effectively than an earlier film adaptation, starring Anne Hathaway. Each episode, until the final two, covers the same day – 15th July, or St Swithin’s Day – of the consecutive year, from graduation night in 1988 until 2007.
“What are days for? / Days are where we live. / They come, they wake us. / Time and time over / They are to be happy in: / Where can we live but days?” This quote, taken from a Philip Larkin poem, is both the epigraph to the novel and the first lines spoken in the show. It epitomises the brilliance of One Day in making the mundane seem extraordinary. The day on which we revisit Emma and Dexter each year has the potential to be as significant or insignificant as any other, but it poignantly marks the passage of time and the different phases of life that the pair move through.
The role of Edinburgh as the founding place of the love story is notable, and the TV series allows it to shine where it is somewhat overlooked in the book. From Old College, to Emma’s Rankeillor Street flat, to Arthur’s Seat; the Edinburgh of the first episode is the gloriously heady, responsibility-free Edinburgh of midsummer, seeped in nostalgia and the perfect space for the initial connection between the two to transpire.
Much of the dialogue, particularly the crucial first scenes in Emma’s bedroom, remains faithful to the original text, which will please longtime fans of David Nicholls’ book. Throughout the TV series, the choices made in the transition from the page to the screen feel rooted in the preservation of the story’s essence, something that is often lost or difficult to recreate in the process of adaptation. As someone who has read and loved the original novel, it was immensely satisfying to watch the adaptation and feel deeply immersed in its world, despite already being so familiar with the narrative. I know exactly how it ends, yet watching One Day I felt the urge to avoid talking about it with too many people for fear of somehow spoiling it for myself. That, I believe, is testament to the perpetually compelling warmth of the love story, which the show so brilliantly embodies.
“McEwan Hall, Bristo Square, University of Edinburgh” by dun_deagh is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.