Review: Netflix's 'One Day' is an addictive romance to get you through the winter

Twenty years later, you’re not the same person you were when you met the love of your life. But change happens slowly. Sometimes love happens slowly too. 

Netflix’s new romance “One Day” (now streaming, ★★★ out of four), is one of those long, lingering relationships. There's no flash-in-the-pan lust or whirlwind vacation romance here. Instead, years of life and love between two very flawed people, Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall, “The White Lotus”). 

Based on the book by David Nicholls (also adapted into a 2011 feature film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess), “One Day” – as the title suggests – follows its couple on the same day each year, checking in briefly with their lives as they move through their young adulthoods and grow up. These brief glimpses into Emma and Dexter’s lives, on days both unimportant and absolutely vital, offer a broad view of a relationship more complicated than its meet-cute might suggest. The 14-episode, mostly half-hour series is a sweet (and often deeply sad) way to look at life, particularly the turbulent period of burgeoning adulthood, as people change and grow, and also regress. 

The series begins in 1988, when Emma and Dexter meet on the day of their college graduation, with endless possibilities ahead of them. After an almost-one-night stand, they embark on a close friendship, leaning on each other as they figure out their lives. As the years go by it becomes clear that their possibilities weren’t as infinite as they once seemed. Dexter sees early success as a TV personality, while Emma’s ambition of becoming a published writer feels unattainable. Each tries their hand at love; each has their own loss. 

“Day” isn’t a traditional romance that goes from point A to point B. Their first night together sees awkward conversation, and then deeper conversation, displacing sex. What develops in the years to come is a friendship sometimes strained by requited and unrequited romantic feelings. The stars never align for a more intimate relationship to blossom between them, at least not at first. They go through the ups and downs of adulthood, with personal and professional successes and failures defining and sometimes debilitating them. 

Whether or not you've seen the movie, it’s easy to see how a TV show is a much better format to tell this story, with each day corresponding to one episode. The short installments are a delightful bonus. There aren’t enough zippy, engaging, tight series – especially dramas. The brevity contributes to its addictiveness; it’s easy to watch just one more episode when the next promises to be only 30 minutes. 

But it wouldn’t succeed without the chemistry between Mod and Woodall, and the young actors establish an onscreen relationship that feels visceral and real. This is no fairytale, and the actors get messy and angry as well as moony and loving. If it’s harder to buy them as Emma and Dexter get into their 30s, that’s not the fault of the actors: They can’t age exactly one year with each passing episode. Different hairstyles and makeup can only go so far when the stars have the unmistakable bloom of youth in their shiny eyes. 

But while you may need a suspension of disbelief, the show sails past those awkward continuity elements because the writing and the two main actors have such a command of the central relationship. The show also expertly captures the mood and wayward feeling of young adulthood sliding into just plain adulthood. Time passes for Emma and Dexter as it passes for us all. 

There’s a cozy comfort to this series, but it isn’t a Hallmark movie; it’s far more like real life. Happy endings aren’t assured. Hard work doesn’t always mean you make it on top. 

But it is so deeply compelling to watch Dexter and Emma try, one day after another.