7 Differences In Netflix's ‘My Oxford Year' Film Vs. Julia Whelan's Book
School is now in session for My Oxford Year, which arrived August 1 on Netflix.
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The film, based on the book by Julia Whelan, watches Sofia Carson's Anna De La Vega attend Oxford University for a year before she returns to the states to start a job lined up at Goldman Sachs waiting for her. Ambitious Anna strikes up a feud with Jamie Davenport (Corey Mylchreest) who turns out to be one of her professors. The burning hate, which masks other feelings, is mutual until the pair get to know each other, bonding over poetry and nights out on the town.
Several changes — large and small — have been made in the movie adaptation from character names to certain plot points. Astute viewers and readers of the book may have caught these, but those that want to study up can find differences between Whelan's book My Oxford Year versus the Netflix film below.
Anna De La Vega vs. Eleanor Duran
In Whelan's book, the main character, Eleanor Duran, is from Ohio. She also got into Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. Carson's character in the film is named Anna De La Vega, and she came to the historic school from New York.
Anna's Post-Grad Job: Goldman Sachs vs. Politics
Another key difference in the female main character from book to film is her job opportunity following her year in England. In the book, Eleanor gets recruited to consult on a political campaign with her background in education policy versus Anna's job lined up at Goldman Sachs after graduating from Oxford. In the book, Eleanor gets the call to advise as she is walking through customs at the London Heathrow airport, and it plays much more of a role in her time at Oxford and her countdown to heading back to the United States.
Anna's Dad Is Alive
A major change for Anna in the film is that her father is alive and well. In Whelan's book, Eleanor's father died when she was young in a freak car accident. The trauma has stuck with Eleanor ever since, making her relationship with her mother tense because Eleanor had to grow up fast, and her mother's anxiety over everything grated on Eleanor. This plot point also significantly factored into the latter half of the story — readers will know, no spoilers — as Eleanor shared her feelings with Jamie, something she doesn't normally do.
Punting With Friends vs. Jamie
Eleanor shares this part of her past with Jamie when they go punting one night in the book. It all comes out over a thermos of hot chocolate Jamie made for their adventure, which reminds Eleanor of her father.
In the movie, Anna goes punting with her friends Charlie (Harry Trevaldwyn), Maggie (Esmé Kingdom) and Tom (Nikhil Parmar), who have just as strong a presence in the film as they do in the show, providing heartfelt moments of laughter and love.
One more spoiler alert! The below two changes spoil the latter half of the story, so last chance to turn back if you haven't seen the film!
Eddie vs. Oliver
Eddie was Jamie's brother in the film, and he died of cancer. Learning about Eddie also clears up the bond that Jamie has with Cecelia Knowles (Poppy Gilbert), who was Eddie's girlfriend.
This reveal plays out largely similarly in the book, with a few different details. In the novel, Jamie's late brother's name is Oliver, and Cecelia was his fiancée, not just his girlfriend.
How Anna Finds Out Jamie Is Lying About His Thesis
About midway through the film, Jamie claims he will be super busy for the next few weeks and not able to see Anna very much, so he suggests she make plans with her friends. He does this under the guise that he has to focus on writing his dissertation, just as he does in the book.
The way Eleanor figures out he is lying about this in the book is when she calls him and asks him for a description of his favorite study spot in the Bodleian Library. She decides to go surprise him, but when she comes upon the study carrell he described to her, he wasn't there.
In the film, the library is still involved in this discovery, but it's the librarian Laura (Nia Anisah) who breaks the news to Anna after Anna mentions to Laura that she must be seeing Jamie a lot while he works in the library. Laura says, no, actually, she hasn't seen him that much.
And what is Jamie covering up? At first, both Eleanor and Anna think it might be that he's cheating or that he just doesn't have the same feelings for her, which she admits to herself, have gone beyond having fun. In reality, Jamie is sick, and he has the same kind of cancer that took his brother.
The Ending
While things start looking grim for Jamie as the story goes on in both book and film after he participated in a trial that was the real reason he couldn't see Anna/Eleanor, the way the book ends versus the movie are slightly different.
In the book, the story leaves off a bit more open-ended, though reasserting through Eleanor's inner monologue that she and Jamie weren't meant to be together. She did break off her plans to return to the states for the political campaign, much to the chagrin of Gavin, her direct connection, but not the political candidate, a woman who was running for office while pregnant.
In the film, Anna seems to take over Jamie's post as poetry professor at Oxford, walking into a new class of first-day students and offering them the same cake he baked for day one of her class with him. This was a different send-off for the character, and viewers also get a montage of Anna seemingly imagining Corey Mylchreest's Jamie with her as they do a grand tour of Europe and hit all the destinations he suggested, when she really went solo.
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