The Times That We All Hoped Would Last:One Day.

"The times that we all hoped would last, like a train they have gone by so fast - and though we stood together at the edge of the platform we were not moved by them" - St. Swithin's Day, Billy Bragg

"But it's the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this and 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 one memorable day" - Great Expectations, Charles Dickens 

When Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) meet at the University of Edinburgh's Graduation Ball in 1988 a chain of events is set in motion that will change both of their lives forever - even if they don't know it at the time. Netflix's One Day (based on the 2009 book by David Nicholls and directed, variously, by Molly Manners, Kate Hewitt, John Hardwick, and Luke Snellin) as they fall in love, fall out of love, become best friends, fall out with each other, and fall back in again and it does so by revisiting Emma and Dexter every year from 1988 to the early 2000s.

Every time, bar one notable exception, on July 15th - St. Swithin's Day. In doing so it manages to take in a wide sweep of emotions and a equally large number of themes. There are meditations on class, privilege, ageing, and family but, more than anything else, this is a story about friendship and love and where the boundary between those two vitally important parts of life stands. Is it worth risking sacrificing a beloved friendship for the chance of something even deeper? 

It is, essentially, a will they/won't they story but it's much more than that too. Very few films or television shows I've ever seen have shown quite so adroitly how it feels to be so close to somebody - yet to be so far away from them at the same time. Neither Emma and Dexter are perfect. In fact, at times, they can be frustrating, irritating even. Yet that makes them feel all the more real, more relatable. Often the people we love most can frustrate and irritate us. It is the bargain we make by allowing love to enter our lives.

They are both certainly very different. He's posh, moneyed, supremely confident (to begin with), and comes across as somewhat vapid. She's blunt, northern, and performative in her intellectual prowess. They may start as cliches, ciphers even, but as One Day's narrative arc develops so do their characters and we see that they are, as we all are, far more complex characters.

It makes for an engrossing, compelling, moving, and sweet drama. When we first meet the two protagonists, classic star-crossed lovers set in a very specific era, in Edinburgh they're both drunk. Upper class Dexter from London is handsome and more than a little bit arrogant and is planning to travel the world. Working class Emma from Leeds is cultured, idealistic, and wants to make a difference. She reads R.D. Laing and Milan Kundera and she is wary of becoming just another notch on Dexter's bedpost.

He offers her a drink, they kiss, but she draws the line at sex - preferring to talk - which she says is sexier. The next day they climb Arthur's Seat and hang out together and he invites her to stay at his parents with him when he returns from France. But when we meet them one year later he's with somebody else, the first in a string of many a short-lived relationships, and she's with Gary (Tim Preston) who runs a shambolic theatre troupe, Sledgehammer, who tour schools with their politically correct productions and bicker amongst themselves.

Despite being apart, they are still writing letters to each other. Gary's a bit of a dick, and perhaps a lightly sketched character, but Emma's next, and more serious, relationship with Ian (Jonny Weldon) is far more interesting. Ian is a sweet man who clearly adores Emma but he's a 'comedian' and his 'jokes' are absolutely terrible. They may get him gigs at The Frog And Parrot in Cockfosters and The Cheshire Cat in Colliers Wood but they start to, quite understandably, grate on Emma.

Emma met Ian when she moved to London to live with her best friend Tilly (Amber Grappy) and ended up working in a Mexican restaurant before becoming a teacher in Walthamstow while trying to write a play or a book, trying to write something. I feel her pain. When Emma splits with Ian she has an affair withe the headmaster, the fantastically named Phil Godalming (Mark Rowley), at the school she teaches in.

Dexter, meanwhile, moves from Magenta Devine lookalike Naomi (Ella Rae-Smith) to Ingrid (not even seen) and on to Suki (Rebekah Murrell) before entering his first serious, and lengthy, relationship with Sylvie (Eleanor Tomlinson), who I found reminded me of the mathematician and broadcaster Hannah Fry.

He takes the Grand Tour (while he's in Rome, it's instructive that Emma is in Wolverhampton) and, back in London, he becomes a television presenter on Larging It (a cross between Network 7 and The Word) which turns him into a minor celebrity and heartthrob surrounded by screaming girls as well as a whipping boy for the press who call him "the most odious man on television" and a "smug self-satisfied smart arse".

Which is hurtful if not necessarily harsh. At this point, Dexter has become a parody of himself. Snorting coke in private member's clubs, hanging out with baronets, and presenting a show which features a segment called "Britain's ugliest girlfriend". Behind the scenes, though, he's not so happy. His mother has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and he's masking the pain with vodka and pills.

Despite the fact they've recently holidayed together on a beautiful Greek island, Emma can't bear to be around him during this period and that bring pain to both of them. Predictably, their fortunes change and this brings them back together but will they come back as friends or as lovers. This is where One Day really starts to press the right buttons and on more then one occasion I found I had something in my eye. In fact, I had quite a lot of stuff there. In both eyes.

The story takes us from an era of cassette tapes and Kestrel lager to the time of Shooting Stars and Nokia phones via curtain haircuts, Basic Instinct, Princess Di, and Indecent Proposal on VHS but nothing sets it in the era more than the superbly realised soundtrack. My friend Darren contended that the soundtrack was the best part of it though I'd have to counter that the rest of it was equal to the soundtrack. Take a deep breath and check this lot out:-

New Order, Pixies, The Stone Roses, Cocteau Twins, The Charlatans, Massive Attack, The Cranberries, Portishead, Primal Scream, Cat Power, The Fall (Bill Is Dead!), Orange Juice, Nick Drake, The Velvet Underground, The Kinks, Manic Street Preachers, Suede, Lou Reed, Blur, Cameo, The Verve, Radiohead, Stereolab, Stereo MCs, Leftfield, Robyn S, Elastica, Frankie Knuckles, N-Joi, Soul II Soul, Karen Dalton, Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man, MC Solaar, Jeff Buckley, Elbow, Gene, Rednex (!), The Magnetic Fields, Gomez, Lambchop, Inner City, S-Express, The House Of Love (Love In A Car!), Badly Drawn Boy, The Mekons, N-Trance, Irma Thomas, The The, Cornershop, Rotary Connection, Belle & Sebastian, and Public Enemy.

If you can't find a lot to enjoy there then I'm not sure we can be friends. The London locations are the sort of places people who live in London actually go (Primrose Hill, Hammersmith Bridge, Charlton Lido, and The Rugby Tavern pub in Holborn) and all the supporting performances (while very much in service to the two leads) are uniformly excellent. Shout outs to Tim McInnerny and Essie Davis as Dexter's parents, Brendan Quinn as Dexter's mate Callum, John MacMillan as his agent Aaron, Adam Loxley as Tilly's partner Graham, and Joely Richardson and Toby Stephens as Sylvie's affluent mummy and daddy.

As Emma and Dexter get older and move on with their lives, it seems the chances of them ever being together become more and more remote and the meetings between them become more and more emotionally charged. At Tilly and Graham's wedding we see this reach what feels like an apex but there are higher highs and lower lows to come. To tell you what they are would render me guilty of spoilers and I don't want to go there as I think you should watch One Day and find out for yourselves.

One Day did an incredible job of showing how much joy there is in life - as well as how much pain we must all suffer. Best of all, it showed how joy and pain always go hand in hand. Without one, it seems, we cannot have the other. Watch it. Feel the pain. Feel the joy.

"The Polaroids that hold us together will surely fade away like the love that we spoke of forever on St. Swithin's Day"