A winding trail up Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh. Flowing green grass and yellow flowers dancing in the breeze. Blue skies. A red hair tie in curly dark hair.
These play like a montage in my mind – like flashes of memories that aren’t really mine. I guess that’s because they aren’t. They belong to fictional character Dexter Mayhew. They’re a repetition of memories from 1988 and 2007, the beginning and end of a love story.
How strange that clips representing both hope and sadness can exist at the same time. How strange that I’ve caught myself zoning out and imagining these scenes like they belong solely to me.
Every four to six years, a story so heartbreaking comes along. It’s a tale as old as time for me – well, at least since I was 16.
Netflix’s limited series “One Day,” which premiered Feb. 8 this year, joins that list of stories that rips me apart.
After the first episode, it was an instant classic. It joins top-tier romances like “Love, Rosie” and “Normal People.” It’s epic in a way that these types of stories only can be.
The teenage version of me would never believe that “Love, Rosie” is the happiest out of those three either – one of the biggest plot twists, really.
In 2014, “Love, Rosie” threw me into an emotional spiral. In 2020, “Normal People” put me into a depressive episode, and now I feel totally fine after watching the first and reading the latter. Oh, the world has turned upside down.
It’s heartbreaking, because it’s real.
The tragedy isn’t thrown in your face in these three stories (besides the final episode of “One Day” on Netflix). It’s a subtle type of loss – a loss that’s felt over the course of almost an entire lifetime. It’s a loss of missed opportunities and the right person at the wrong time.
“Imagine one selected day struck out of your life, and think how different its course would have been. Think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on that memorable day.”
Charles Dickens “Great Expectations” quote Emma used during Tilly and Graham’s wedding toast in episode 10
“One Day” is about two people’s lives, Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) and Emma Morley (Ambika Mod), over the course of nearly 20 years as they weave into each other’s lives. We see them meet at their university graduation ball in Edinburgh and share their first full day together on July 15, 1988. After that, we met up with them on that same day each year until 2007.
I thought that day was selected since it marked their anniversary of knowing each other, but the real meaning of that day was revealed in the second-to-last episode.
I haven’t cried that hard watching a show in a long time.
I couldn’t help but compare “One Day” to “Love, Rosie” and “Normal People.” These three stories (along with many others I’m missing) have mastered the art of yearning.
‘Love, Rosie’
I was first introduced to this type of storytelling when the “Love, Rosie” movie came out in 2014 featuring Lily Collins and Sam Claflin as the leads. I literally only knew that Collins (Clary Fray from “The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones” movie) and Claflin (Finnick Odair in the “Catching Fire” movie) were in a romantic British movie together. That’s all I needed to know.
Unfortunately, it was much harder in the 2010s to have access to international media than it is now. I had to wait for it to come out on DVD, so I read the book during that waiting period called “Where Rainbows End” by Cecelia Ahren.
Their story was written over the course of decades and told completely through written correspondence to each other. I’ve never felt so smart and pretentious in my life than I did reading that book at 16. It’s been 10 years, and I’m still not over it.
I’ve been trying to rewatch this movie for nearly five years but struggled to get through it again, because Rosie (Collins) and Alex’s (Claflin) miscommunication hurt too much to watch. I had a breeze rewatching it the day after I finished watching “One Day” though. This was like a fairytale in comparison.
‘Normal People’
I had “Normal People” during my final spring semester of college in 2020. It was yet another heartbreaking series of missed opportunities that I’m still not over. To be fair though, I’m not sure I’ve gotten over a single thing in my life.
Connell (Paul Mescal) and Marianne’s (Daisy Edgar Jones) relationship was fascinating to watch, and even more interesting to read. The story follows them from their final year of high school through university at Trinity College in Dublin.
The story by Sally Rooney is truly just about “normal people” and how our own insecurities and anxieties can get in the way of what we truly want. The book even goes so far as to not use quotation marks at all in order to visually express their lack of communication. It was a bit tricky to read, but it was the perfect narrative device to use (though I do recommend the audio book if it’s too annoying for readers).
These are the stories for different generations, and all three are absolutely brilliant in the way they captivate that love.
Spoiler alert warning
A rainy July 15th
This isn’t the first life of Dexter and Emma’s love story, and it isn’t even the second. The book by David Nicholls came out in 2009, and a movie featuring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess came out in 2011.
Despite me being so sad, I’m so happy to have 14 episodes of this story.
It was heartbreaking, and I was shouting “no” at my TV when the real meaning behind the one day was revealed to be Emma’s death day in the penultimate episode.
“There was yet another date of greater importance…her own death. A day which lay sly and unseen,” Emma read to Dexter from a Thomas Hardy novel in episode 14.
Dexter told Emma on July 15, 1988, that it was St. Swithin’s Day and that if it rains on that day, it’s supposed to rain all summer. Every day we met them on July 15, it was sunny except for the day Emma died in 2002. I should’ve known something bad was brewing when I first saw the raindrops fall.
Dexter’s depiction of grief when he was losing his mom to cancer in episode five and then losing Emma from the accident in episode 13 shattered me.
More than a footnote
I love the way “One Day” sets up Emma not wanting to be a footnote in Dexter’s life in the very first episode to show how she actually became his entire story, an entire book.
We see Emma say this to Dexter when they’re hiking Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh that first full day together in 1988.
“I’m not being a footnote…. In the story of your life,” Emma told Dexter, hiking down Arthur’s Seat.
Dexter returns to Arthur’s Seat with his daughter Jasmine in 2007 to relive his first memories of Emma in the final episode. Everything comes full circle at that moment.
He ensures that Emma is way more than just a footnote in his daughter’s life as well by sharing these memories with her. They climb to the top together (though there are fewer yellow flowers the second time around), and he points down below where he first met Emma.
I was ugly sobbing the entire time watching this.
The episode ended with Dexter and Jasmine walking in the same footsteps as he previously did with Emma, the two scenes overlaid one another. We see 2007 Dexter look up the steps at 1988 Emma as she’s stopped by the old version of him calling out her name. A montage of all their kisses throughout the years starts and then ends with their kiss on the steps Dexter’s on now.
The art of storytelling
It was the perfect way to close out their story.
It’s also probably one of the hardest types of stories to come to terms with as people, because we can’t blame that hurt on life getting in the way. Though a freak accident killed Emma, Dexter and Emma lost nearly a decade of time they could’ve spent together due to miscommunication.
It’s a hurt of “what ifs” that we blame ourselves for. “One Day,” “Normal People,” and “Love, Rosie” are all stories that really resonate with me and audiences. Everyone has things they wonder about – whether it’s a missed romantic connection or dream we let slip aside.
It’s the art of storytelling, and it’s the art of captivating such a normal human experience with characters who are so well fleshed out. We see their flaws but we don’t villainize them for it. It only adds to the depths of their characters.
Dexter, if poorly written, could’ve easily been an antagonist with his outbursts, privilege and his whole “I want to be rich and famous when I’m 40” conversation. But he’s not. He’s beloved because he is real. After only seeing him on one day each year, we somehow manage to get such an incredible grasp on who he is as a person.
The same goes for Emma. She literally had an affair and stayed in relationships that she didn’t necessarily want to be in. However, we love her anyway.
It’s easy to stereotype characters like Dexter and Emma and put them in a box, so it’s a real feat and accomplishment to have them as strong and complex as they are. I think everyone can find something relatable in each of them despite living in different circumstances.
Dexter’s anxieties. Emma’s insecurities. These are the types of feelings that swirl around in each of us.
“One Day” captures the human experience of what it feels like to be lost in our twenties. I finished the show with a weight on my chest and tears streaming down my face. However, after reflecting back on it days later, I feel validation lifting me up.
I think there’s a lot of pressure in our twenties and early thirties to have our entire lives together and immediately know what we’re supposed to do. Emma and Dexter’s characters really normalizes what it actually feels like in that early stage of adulthood.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to move on from this story but not today.
Tune in
Here’s a playlist I think really captures that whole “sad love story montage” feeling I get when thinking of “One Day.”
[…] Watching “One Day” […]
Great article!!! I love the way you talk about television and film 🙌