There’s a common misconception that romantic comedies are, by their nature, silly, and any story that fixates on meet-cutes and will-they-won’t-theys is the on-screen equivalent of comfort food. Netflix’s One Day may just be the thing that proves the romcom snobs wrong.

Based on the 2010 novel by David Nicholls, One Day tells a simple love story in a rather unusual way: we see just one day of the couple’s life each year.

It all begins in Edinburgh in the wee hours of the morning of 15 July 1988. The meet-cute: working class girl from Leeds, Emma, meets Dexter, a floppy-haired posh boy from the southern counties during their graduation ball. They almost have a one-night stand, but the mood shifts once they start talking. She wants to change the world, she says, without more than the tiniest hint of irony. He wants to travel, he says, with no irony whatsoever. She mocks his privileged vanity. He calls out the chip on her shoulder. They couldn’t be more different, but they fall asleep next to each other. The next day, they decide to be ‘just friends’.

Fast forward one year to 15 July 1989, and the pair have become pen pals. Emma has joined a rather depressing touring theatre troupe, while Dexter is lazing around Rome without a care in the world.

In each episode, we catch up with the pair one year down the line. They make decisions, both good and bad, which take them down their own unique paths. Over the years, they weave in and out of each other’s lives: sometimes their paths bring them together, and sometimes they send them reeling in opposite directions. Emma gets stuck in an awful job and a disappointing relationship; Dexter falls into a career as a sleazy TV presenter. Emma has a career pivot; Dexter marries the wrong woman. And so it goes.

One Day is a prime example of the classic friends-to-lovers trope done very well and painstakingly slowly. In fact, it follows practically the exact same format as Nora Ephron’s genre-defining romcom When Harry Met Sally. As that film’s central pair explains at the end of that film: “We were friends for a long time. And then we weren’t. And then we fell in love.” In other words, Emma and Dexter’s story is, on paper, a classic love story.

One Day, however, takes the friends-to-lovers slow burn to a new level, drawing out this classic format across an agonisingly long 14 years. With each episode dedicated to one day from each year, the sheer sense of time that this creates is where the series excels when compared to the Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess 2011 film, where the years sometimes ticked by in a matter of minutes. 

With more time dedicated to each year that passes, Netflix’s One Day becomes a fascinatingly detailed dual-character study. We see how circumstances, choices and relationships shape them into the people they eventually become. With Emma, we see how the idealism of her youth fades slowly, year by year. With Dexter, we watch as his privilege and indecision morph into an ugly stream of narcissism.

Interestingly, we get to see how these two ever-changing (and, refreshingly, not always very nice) characters influence each other, too. They may be total and complete opposites, but they always complement each other: Emma brings Dexter back down to Earth; Dexter encourages Emma to see her own potential. It’s a long friendship that goes through many ups and downs – and the depth of understanding that builds between them over the years is profoundly romantic. As such, their coming together is wholly earned and completely satisfying.

I do not want to spoil the ending of One Day, but it’s safe to say that it will surprise viewers who are expecting the typical romcom denouement. Instead, it leaves its viewers with surprisingly philosophical food for thought. 

As we watch the years float by, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed and slightly sickened by the steady, unstoppable march of time. In most romcoms, time is rarely something we worry about. Harry and Sally spent years messing around as friends before they finally fell in love, but at least they did finally come together in the end. Right?

In One Day, however, it is impossible to ignore the ominous sense of time wasted and time lost. What if coming together eventually isn’t quite enough? Emma and Dexter waste time in the wrong relationships, but also the wrong jobs, the wrong friendships, the wrong flats, and even in the wrong countries. And yet 15 July floats by every year.

Ultimately, One Day offers a melancholic, reflective spin on the romcom. It is a beautiful love story, but it is also a love story that dares to home in on regret for the past as much as it does on hope for the future, and it is all the better for it.

One Day is now streaming on Netflix.

Images: Netflix