By: Ebba Eriksson
If you have not heard about the new Netflix series One Day you must have been living under a rock, based on David Nicholls 2009 novel with same name. In the lead are two amazing young talents to watch Ambika Mod (This is going to hurt) plays Emma Morely and Leo Woodall (The White Lotus) is Dexter Mayhew. There was also the Anne Hataway film in 2011, which didn’t make such a splash This is a love story for the ages, in an updated version for Gen Z and Gen X alike the former who romanticize the 90’s and latter who are reminiscing their youth. It all takes place during one day over 20 years time, from when Emma and Dexter meet in 1988 until the early 2000’s, we follow their lives from university in Edinburgh where they met, while meeting other people, building a career and living their life, on the 15th of July on the anniversary of when they met.
I binged this over a few days, but similarly to Saltburn it did feel like it was a bit juvenile, my criticism would be that some of the dialogue felt a bit stilted at times, however the whole series is very bingeable and I am now reading the book as a result and not the re released one but I trawled the internet to find a copy of the original paperback one (available on WOB from £5.30), which was hard as the book is now back in the bestsellers charts according to the Guardian, due to the popularity of the series.
The appeal of the show apart from fresh talent that is bookish and funny Ambika Mod and gorgeous Leo Woodall who does sad drunk posh boy so well, is the attention to detail in the set design, and relishing the decades from when the series starts back on 15th of July 1988 until the last episode 15th of July 2005. If you lived in any of the locations of the series London or Edinburgh, at the time or not, you will enjoy the very subtle period markers. My daughter who is 14 also enjoyed watching the series but she didn’t think the period detail was very accurate maybe because they tried to stay away from the obvious late 80’s 90’s and 00’s tropes, as the creator and screen writer Nicole Taylor says in this BAFTA interview she credit the amazing art director Patrick Rolfe for evoking the era the series depicts.
Me and my teenage daughter also discussed the unusual female character of Emma, she is just being herself and not trying to be loveable or even likeable, which is challenging the usual norm seen on screen. Listen to this hilarious BBC1 Screen Time spoiler podcast where Ambika talks about the character she plays and her own love story with the book.
Watch the interview with Ambika Mod in Graham Norton
