‘One Day’ ending: is it the same as in the book?
Warning: Spoilers ahead
The television adaptation of the best-selling David Nicholls novel One Day is riding high on Netflix, but how closely does the series adhere to the book?
All fourteen episodes of the show were released to the streaming platform on February 8, with the lead roles being taken by Leo Woodall and Ambika Mod. The supporting cast also includes Essie Davis, Tim McInnerny and Joely Richardson.
Woodall is best known for playing Jack in the second season of HBO drama The White Lotus, while Mod came to greater attention by playing the character Shruti in This is Going to Hurt.
This adaptation follows on from a 2011 film version, which starred Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess, and was met with many negative reviews.
In a four star review of the show, NME wrote: “One Day fans can breathe a sigh of relief. This adaptation of David Nicholls’ mega-selling 2009 novel really improves on the 2011 film.”
“Even if you remember what happens from the book, you’ll still come away with moistened eyes wondering, gulp, what might have been.”
Is the One Day ending the same as in the book?
Nicholls’ original novel was published in 2009 and it followed the lives of its two protagonists by documenting the same day – July 15 – from each year of their lives over the course of two decades, starting in 1988.
Having sold over give million copies internationally, the book was a major success, and many fans will be eager to observe whether the series sticks closely to the narrative.
The story is told in a broadly similar manner, with some minor nuances.
Following Emma’s death in episode 13, Dexter enters a period of self-destructive behaviour, before taking comfort in his family. Eventually regaining stability, he accompanies his daughter to Edinburgh, and they climb the same hill that he and Emma did two decades earlier.
Where the book ends on a chapter that explores the events of the day after Emma and Dexter first meet, the series opts to incorporate that passage into the opening episode.
The series instead concludes with a flashback to the first meeting at the same spot 19 years ago, as Dexter remembers the words of Emma that she didn’t want to be a footnote in his life, and saying goodbye to him, before the couple share their first kiss. The story then finishes with a montage of all of the kisses Emma and Dexter shared over the years.
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Max Pilley
NME
