#31 Netflix's 'One Day' is not about love; it's about addiction

Netflix’s One Day appears to have left a tsunami of tears in its wake. In homes around the world, viewers have been left devastated by a world that, for whatever reason, could not allow Emma and Dexter to be together. These modern day ‘star crossed lovers’, supposedly kept apart by fate, bad timing and a few missed phone-calls, are seen as the epitome of true love, walking-talking soulmates. And with the latter, I agree: Emma and Dexter are, as Phoebe from Friends would say are, ‘each other’s lobster.’

But on the former - the idea that cruel fate kept these two apart - I disagree. It wasn’t fate or bad timing or missed phone calls that prevented these two from finding their happy ever after. It was, instead, Dexter, the dashing, spoiled, over-indulged, only child of affluent parents, who grew up with an emotionally unavailable father and a mother whose adoration for her son is, at best, highly co-dependent and at worst, inappropriate. But none of those things are the reason Emma and Dexter aren’t together. It’s the addict brain that lives inside Dexter that prevents him, time and time again, from stepping up and being who he needs to be.

Dexter and his mother, drunk in Italy.

To be clear - this is not an attack on addicts. I am, myself, a fully-fledged addict (in recovery). This is simply an observation because it’s not surprising to me that theme of addiction is one that is being missed by so many. Addiction and addict behaviours have become so normalised in society that many of us don’t even recognise them when they are playing out right in front of us. Some of us (and I include past versions of myself in this) don’t even know when we are the addicts.

Dexter is, without doubt, affable and charming and always, throughout the whole show, endearingly likeable. And this is another misconception - addicts aren’t always malevolent forces, hell-bent on consciously blowing up their lives and the lives of those who love them. Mostly, addicts are lost, hopeless souls trying to do their best but failing and when they fail they drink and when they drink they fail in bigger and better ways, rinse and repeat.

Dexter is drunk when we meet him and desperately seeking a shag. From that first night, Emma challenges him to be better. “What’s your plan?” she asks, to which Dexter has no answer beyond the vacuous suggestion of travelling for a bit. For some, an encounter with someone like Emma may kick them into action, reset their focus and make them realise that they need and want to get their shit together. For addicts, it doesn’t work like that. All that encounter does is ignite the various viruses common to most addicts: ‘I’mnotgoodenoughitus’, ‘Poor me Pox’ and the most powerful of all ‘Fuckyou Syndrome’.