My Oxford Year checks all the boxes for a romcom. It has the meet cute, the falling in love, the problem in the 3rd act, and – despite the tragic aspect of this love story – it has a cheery ending.
My Oxford Year features Anna (Sofia Carson), an American postgrad student at Oxford to study poetry for a year, and Jamie (Corey Mylchreest), the professor she falls in love with.
These two look very pretty together. They have excellent smiley, happy chemistry. But when the hard parts come they don’t deliver the depth.
Part of the problem here is that this film doesn’t compare well with some of the unusually good romcoms we’ve had in the last year. My evidence:
If you don’t expect the best romcom ever as opposed to a nice serviceable one you’ll enjoy this romance. Bonus points if you like a romance but don’t appreciate bad language or extra steamy sex. Netflix is streaming My Oxford Year, but it could have cleared Hallmark’s standards.
There’s a full list of slightly quirky secondary characters, including Charlie (Harry Trevaldwyn), Maggie (Esmé Kingdom), Tom (Nikhil Parmar), and Cecelia (Poppy Gilbert). Charlie is the flaming gay. Maggie is the good friend. Tom is the clueless nerd. Cecelia seems suspiciously like Jamie’s girlfriend.
Jamie’s parents are played by Dougray Scott and Catherine McCormack. Parents aren’t usually key players in a romcom, but they figure heavily in Jamie’s story arc.
If you are devoted to romcoms, what did you think of this one?
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