One Day shouldn’t work. Consider its premise: posh southern boy fancies working-class northern lass … for two decades. He grew up in the Cotswolds and is planning on spending the summer after graduating from university in France “with the Marlborough lot”. She tours dusty village halls with plays about suffrage and pauses to put on Joan Armatrading’s Love and Affection before she gets off with someone. It doesn’t sound plausible. Or touching. Or funny. Or relevant to our times, which have travelled so far beyond “class-conflicted” that I can’t summon a word vicious enough for them.
And yet. When David Nicholls’ third novel came out, in 2009, it won over every person who read it, even the ones who don’t do romantic comedy. It was so funny and unpretentious, so heartfelt and true. The film that followed was weirdly awful, but let’s treat that as the rebound relationship instantly excised from your romantic history so you can love again. Because we now have the hot 2020s version. And this one’s a keeper.
