One Day is a television series that elicits a plaintively good cry. It starts with youthful exuberance (and ignorance) that leads to contentment and middle-aged melancholy. It is a modern, epic, sweeping romance that makes you appreciate what you have and long for what you don’t.
One Day follows two main characters: the dashing playboy Dexter (Leo Woodall) and the independent Emma (Ambija Mod). They met by chance on the night of their university graduation in 1988. The duo spends the night together, which turns into one full day, before running into Dexter’s parents, Alison (Babyteeth’s Essie Davis) and Stephen (Tim McInnery).
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Netflix’s One Day Season 1 Review and Plot Summary
They part ways the next day, ending it with a kiss. What transpires next is a romance and friendship that lasts for over twenty years. Dex and Em’s lives intersect at the right and wrong times as they share the joys and sorrows that only life can bring. Dex longs to be a photojournalist, but his mom sees right through him, using a career as an excuse to chase women.
Em wants to be a writer, but she needs to gain the means and privileges that Dex has. She finds a touring troupe that goes from school to school, teaching the women’s suffrage kids. These ups and downs hardly intersect when both are at their best. As the story unfolds, the viewers will ask themselves if they will be brought back together by fate or free will.
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One Day is a stirring romance
One Day is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by David Nicholls. If the name and story seem familiar, they should. The book was adapted into a 2011 film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. The series surpasses the Hathaway film because it’s vibrant, funny, and achingly honest regarding the wall that blocks communication when we don’t tell the ones we love the truth.
What you’ll love about One Day is that the chemistry between Em and Dex is mature and well-earned, whereas most romantic comedies or romances are undeserving. By the time we reach Episode 10, you’ll feel how profound the romance is and even handle the redemption as the season progresses. Of course, the story’s potent dose of grief.
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Is Netflix’s One Day Worth Watching?
One Day is worth watching for its fresh take on a Gen-X romance that keeps becoming irrelevant with each passing year. However, the filmmakers hardly douse the series with the ’80s and ’90s style, making the show as evergreen as possible.
What sells the series is the combination of fate and free will existing between those two, which makes the compatibilism story intriguing and even suspenseful. One Day hardly reinvents the wheel when it comes to romantic entertainment fare. However, the story is wonderfully told and brimming with heartfelt empathy for its characters, which is universal, no matter the generation or cliché.
You can stream the limited series One Day only on Netflix.
Grade: 8/10
