My Oxford Year

The Poetry of the Finite

It is a curious paradox of the modern streaming era that the films most obsessed with the preciousness of time are often the ones that feel most like they are wasting ours. *My Oxford Year*, the latest entry in Netflix’s glossy catalogue of transatlantic heartbreak, arrives carrying the baggage of the genre: the ambitious American heroine, the brooding British intellectual, and the inevitable medical tragedy that serves as a third-act plot device. Yet, under the direction of Iain Morris—a filmmaker best known for the ribald, awkward comedy of *The Inbetweeners*—this adaptation of Julia Whelan’s novel attempts something quieter, more melancholic, and surprisingly earnest.



Morris, working against his comedic instincts, frames Oxford not just as a postcard backdrop for romance, but as a space where the weight of history presses against the fleeting nature of youth. The film’s visual language is drenched in the golden, hallowed light of academia—dust motes dancing in libraries, the ancient stone of the Bodleian—creating a sense of permanence that contrasts sharply with the impermanence of the central relationship. Where a lesser director might have relied on the manic energy of a "fish out of water" comedy, Morris allows the camera to linger on the quiet spaces between Anna (Sofia Carson) and Jamie (Corey Mylchreest). The result is a film that *looks* like a memory before the event has even finished, a visual premonition of the grief that we know is coming.

At the narrative's center is a conflict between the curated life and the lived one. Anna De La Vega arrives with her existence mapped out on a spreadsheet, her future at Goldman Sachs assured. Carson plays her with a brittle, practiced perfectionism that slowly cracks under the influence of Jamie, a teaching assistant whose chaotic charm masks a terminal diagnosis. While the script often stumbles into the pitfalls of the genre—replacing the novel’s nuanced political ambitions for Anna with a more generic corporate destiny—the emotional core remains intact.



The film’s true strength, however, lies in how it handles the "secret." In many romances, a terminal illness is treated as a betrayal or a shock tactic. Here, Mylchreest’s performance grounds it in exhaustion and a desperate desire for agency. Jamie’s refusal of treatment is not presented as noble martyrdom, but as a terrified, human choice to govern the terms of his own ending. The chemistry between Carson and Mylchreest elevates the material; they manage to find pockets of genuine intimacy amidst the melodrama. There is a specific scene in a pub—far removed from the polished sheen of the trailer moments—where the banter dies down, and they are simply two young people realizing that "forever" is a luxury they cannot afford.



Ultimately, *My Oxford Year* is a film about the courage it takes to alter one's trajectory. It argues that the tragedy of a short life does not negate its beauty, much like a stanza of poetry is not diminished by its brevity. The ending, which diverges from the book to offer a more definitive, solitary conclusion for Anna, reinforces this. We are left not with a fairy tale of miraculous recovery, but with the harder, truer lesson: that love is not about saving someone, but about witnessing them. It is a flawed, occasionally syrupy film, but one that manages to land a genuine emotional blow, reminding us that even the most carefully planned year can—and perhaps should—be entirely rewritten.