So we’ve been binge watching One Day, the Netflix limited series, and it is sooo gooood. It’s based on the 2010 novel of the same name by David Nicholls, which I hadn’t heard of, and same goes for the 2011 movie adaptation starring Anne Hathaway, which is hard to imagine.

I do mean hard to imagine Anne Hathaway in this role, nothing against her, but also I have no idea how you could compress the plot to two hours. The series is 14 episodes of just under 30 minutes each, and each time we hit the end of one I’m like why do they keep ending?!

It’s a simple enough concept, but difficult to pull off: Emma and Dexter meet on college graduation night (in Edinburgh, this is a British production) July 15th of 1988, and each episode shows us where they’re at in their evolving friendship on that same date in future years, most of it in London. But in addition to the two really charming lead performances, what has me hooked is the writing. Cliché alert, but it’s legitimately so hard to find anything that’s even written anymore, much less well written. This one is reminiscent of some of the indie gems of the ’90s, like Before Sunrise. (If you haven’t seen that, get on it!)

I’m curious how much of the great writing — the dialogue, the incredibly economical and seamless way each episode picks up a year (or more?) later, the way each is completely different than the one before — is to the credit of the novel and how much to the series writers, led by Nicole Taylor. I’m not likely to read the book after watching this, so if you know how faithful the show is and how much is original, I’d love to hear it!

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[ IMAGE: Still from the Netflix series One Day ]