I was 15 in 2012, which meant that I was patient zero of the mid-2010s YA adaptation boom, when a John Greenmovie didn’t just get a theatrical release, but could pull in hundreds of millions of dollars. There was nothing more romantic than two 16-year-olds with cancer kissing on a bridge to a Charli XCX song she now despises, or two 16-year-olds finding love in a mental health facility where they learn the cure for depression is to go to art school instead of Harvard. (Anitdepressants? Who needs them when you’re young and in love!) The Fault in Our Stars, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, Paper Towns, Now Is Good, these romantic tales of misery were my bread and butter, and I ate up every single one. I felt they were the thinking teenage girl’s Twilight or The Hunger Games, too smart and pretentious for mythical beings or warfare, despite my enjoying these movies a great deal more over a decade later.
So, watching Netflix’s adaptation of the 2018 novel, My Oxford Year, was a jarring throwback to my teenage years when the most pressing detail to know about a boy was who his favorite poet was and which literary quote he had as his screensaver on his iPod touch. Despite being based on a book from after the YA boom and being set today, My Oxford Year is the most painfully 2010s movie since, well, the 2010s, a sequence of Tumblr and We Heart It images with the plot and character development out of a Wattpad novel written by a 15-year-old One Direction fan.
‘My Oxford Year’ Is Your Average Young Love Cliché Story
Anna (Sofia Carson) is a New Yorker born to Latinx immigrants who have her entire life planned. She’s finished college and accepted a secure job as a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs. But before she commits her life to the corporate slog, she accepts a scholarship to Oxford to earn her MA in Victorian poetry. It’s one last year of dreaming before the 9-5 hustle claims her, and she intends on making the most of it! She has her English checklist, and while her new British pals watch Naked Attraction (one of the few niches of British culture the film gets right), she’s gushing over Elizabeth Barrett Browning or quoting Tennyson. Dare I say, she’s… not like other girls.
Her uniqueness and sharp tongue earn her the attention of her new hot substitute professor, Jamie (Corey Mylchreest), an Eton-educated son of a Lord who is Oxford’s resident playboy. They soon strike up a romance that Jamie is quick to label as “just fun.” But the more time they spend together, and the more they kiss before the scene cuts away to them in bed the following morning, the deeper they fall for each other. As the trailer teases, there’s something Jamie is hiding from Anna, and the midway reveal sends her plan and the narrative onto a different path altogether.
‘My Oxford Year’ Has a Midway Reveal That Changes the Film’s Tone
My Oxford Year is very much a film of two halves, as the story begins with Anna before completely reframing onto Jamie. Anna may be presented as our protagonist throughout, but the latter half becomes entirely about Jamie, even if the film wants you to believe you’re following Anna’s journey. Anna may not be the most engrossing narrator or lead character, but by the time Jamie’s earth-shattering reveal is made, you’ve formed somewhat of a connection to her. She’s the daughter of immigrants who have had to work tirelessly for a good life, and those values have naturally been passed on to Anna. She remarks that not everyone can enjoy the luxuries that Jamie is accustomed to on a teacher’s salary. But his privilege and background are then turned into porn for any American viewer, as Anna and her friends stay at his humongous family estate.
Instead of burrowing into their differing ideas about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and how they differ based on class and background, Anna and Jamie’s romance is based entirely on them exchanging progressively earnest platitudes, quotes taken from centuries-old poetry that the script dumbs down and shoehorns into every moment between the couple. “The best parts of life are the messy bits!” “Just because something is fleeting doesn’t mean it’s not meaningful!” The film is so saturated by these euphemisms that it prevents any character from sounding like a normal 20-something for too long. The film spends its extremely bloated 2-hour runtime throwing as many philosophical catchphrases at the wall in the hopes that one will stick, but each one slides down faster than the last.
And after Jamie’s truth, the film veers into much heavier territory, that it squishes down into the easily sellable motion of “live life to the fullest.” Combining these hollow and easy encapsulations with topics such as grief and mortality makes the film go from harmlessly dumb to egregiously thoughtless. In comparison to The Fault in Our Stars, which, to Green’s credit, forged a thoughtful and tender story of two young people falling in love while having to confront their own mortality,My Oxford Year feels like a mishmash of every trope from the YA boom without the charm or heart that made these stories so successful in the first place.
‘My Oxford Year’ Veers Towards the More Conservative Side of Netflix’s Romance Catalogue
Netflix’s romance offerings are a mixed bag; they oddly seem to excel in their teenage outings, with To All the Boys I’ve Loved Beforeand The Half of Itbeing relatable tales of unrequited and young love. When you get into older territory, you can have the steamy raunchiness of Bridgerton, which marries nuanced female-focused sentiments with age-old sweeping romantic set-ups. Or you get the chaste conservatism of their Christmas Hallmark movies, and My Oxford Year veers towards the latter. It does have some sex in it, but it’s not how Anna goes about her romantic relationships that gives the film a notably maidenly tone. When Jamie is regaling Anna with his European travels, he brings up the Red Light District, a popular tourist attraction in Amsterdam. Without missing a beat, Anna tells him, “I’m not that kind of girl.” But, don’t worry, Jamie was actually referring to a breathtaking church! If you want to make the average modern-day woman’s ears burn, use a line like that. Paired with Anna’s endless rotation of knee-high socks, mini skirts, tartan trench coats, and sensible shoes, My Oxford Year will be the movie club favorite for Christian Girl Autumn members.
Both Sofia Carson and Corey Mylchreest are recognizable to avid Netflix watchers. Carson has starred in The Life List, Carry-On, and Purple Hearts, whereas Mylchreest starred in a much less chaste romance with the Bridgerton spinoff, Queen Charlotte. Carson plays Anna with a stiff mannerliness, a constant smug smirk on her face, or else she’s biting her lip. While it does calm down in the back half of the film, Carson’s caricature of a quick-witted American who just loves the smell of books comes across as the original prototype for the Pick Me Girl. Carson and Mylchreest have decent enough chemistry, even if Mylchreest is doing a bland Hugh Grantimpression in parts. Anna’s new college friends in HarryTrevaldwyn, Nikhil Parmar, and Esmé Kingdom,bring some British levity that cuts through the pretentiousness. Playing Jamie’s father, Dougray Scottdoesn’t let the material stop him from giving a pretty devastating performance, feeling like he’s in his own movie — a much better one. When the film wants to veer towards more sombre territory, Scott is the sobering presence that brings the movie as close to touching grass as possible.
Despite what you may infer from this review, I love a romance film. But because it’s a genre filled with such slop, and singling out the decent ones is progressively more difficult, it has never been more frustrating to be a fan of the genre. Nuanced characters, no reliance on clichéd tropes, authentic dialogue, and more intimate sex scenes are all we’re asking for. My Oxford Year could’ve pulled in $100 million at the theatrical box office had it been released in 2013. But, along with the streamer’s horrendous adaptation of Uglies last year, it belongs to the days of Just Girly Things and Obama’s second term.
My Oxford Year releases on Netflix on August 1.
My Oxford Year
My Oxford Year is a summation of the 2010s YA adaptation boom clichés.
- Release Date
-
August 1, 2025
- Runtime
-
112 minutes
- Director
-
Iain Morris
- Writers
-
Allison Burnett, Melissa Osborne, Julia Whelan
-
Sofia Carson
Anna De La Vega
-
Corey Mylchreest
Jamie Davenport
- Dougray Scott gives an emotional performance that elevates the scenes he’s in.
- The script is more concerned with shoehorning in poetry quotes and sloppy platitudes than meaningful dialogue.
- The film as a whole feels incredibly dated, most obvious in Anna’s character.
- Sofia Carson gives a stiff performance.
