2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
My Oxford Year movie review: Netflix's Saiyaara-coded weepy is no better than a Mohit Suri movie
What begins like an In the Heights-style story about upward mobility and female ambition turns into what can only be described as a Mohit Suri movie. Saiyaara won't leave you alone no matter how hard you try. The sappy tone of Suri's films, borrowed from the cinema of more countries than the average Indian will ever visit in their lifetime, has swung all the way back around and influenced the likes of My Oxford Year. It's perhaps the most algorithmic film that Netflix has released in recent memory. Starring two of the streamer's newest alums — Sofia Carson from The Life List and Corey Mylchreest from Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story — the film makes you wonder if it was produced only because the filmmakers gained no-holds-barred access to the University of Oxford.
This backwards way of functioning used to be quite common in Bollywood, when 'briefcase producers' would 'sign' movie stars first, and only then concoct vague stories around song-and-dance numbers and random set pieces. My Oxford Year is based on a novel by Julia Whelan, and has been produced by the same company behind the Twilight movies; you can almost imagine the producers dusting off piles of film rights to books from up-and-coming authors, and pitching them one after another to Netflix. Always in the market for something that can be watched while filing your taxes, the streamer would've lapped My Oxford Year up hungrily.
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For around 45 minutes, it seems like the most risqué thing that My Oxford Year can do is to get you to root for a relationship between a brilliant American student and her (admittedly young) professor. They two might be in the same age bracket, but there's something obviously very scandalous about such an arrangement. As the quintessential rom-com heroine, Anna is plucky, individualistic, and driven. Her transition into subservience feels entirely rushed, and bizarrely regressive. But this happens only after her professor, Jamie, reveals a dark secret about himself. This was the reason behind his reluctance to fully commit to her after a breezy courtship across the Oxford grounds, while the movie allowed you to assume that he was just being a rake.
It wouldn't be fair to reveal the plot twist here, but anybody who has ever slept through a Nicholas Sparks film can probably tell what happens. My Oxford Year's tone changes almost instantly after the big reveal, which practically pushes director Iain Morris into a narrative corner. He isn't the first person you'd think of to direct a film like My Oxford Year; Morris is best known as the creator of the very incel-coded British sitcom The Inbetweeners — the franchise, which spawned two hit films, has aged rather poorly. And although My Oxford Year is primarily presented through a woman's perspective, the male entitlement of Morris' cinema seeps through.
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Carson is perfectly fine in the lead role, which was perhaps first offered to a more established Netflix star such as Millie Bobby Brown, who last appeared in the Russo Brothers' The Electric State. She wasn't exactly hurt by that film's disastrous performance, and Carson will likely escape unscathed as well. This is the beauty of streaming films; most of them are so terrible, they're forgotten within days of release. It's a win-win situation for the young actors headlining them; by next week, it will almost be as if My Oxford Year never happened. Certainly, that's what Mylchreest would hope. He can learn from his fellow Bridgerton breakout Rege-Jean Page, who also took the Russo Brothers route to movie stardom and barely survived, unlike Jonathan Bailey, who chose to play a supporting role in the theatrical hits Wicked and Jurassic World Rebirth instead.
The one thing going for My Oxford Year is that it has been filmed on location, inside several landmark buildings. This gives the movie a distinct whiff of Hogwarts. Plus, Anna immediately makes a couple of Ron and Hermione-adjacent new friends, who come and go as they please. In one scene, Jamie takes Anna to the Bodleian Library, which has to be one of the most romantic date spots ever. It does the trick for their relationship. They also frequent a local gyro cart and make friends with the owner, Dimitri. But all of this happens in the first half. Like a Hindi movie, My Oxford Year transforms after an hour into a different beast altogether; not necessarily one that you'd signed up for. Only romance completists will be able to tolerate its treacly sentimentality, because My Oxford Year is the kind of movie that makes you want to go on a detox immediately afterwards.
My Oxford Year
Director – Iain Morris
Cast – Sofia Carson, Corey Mylechreest, Dougray Scott
Rating – 2/5
Rohan Naahar is an assistant editor at Indian Express online. He covers pop-culture across formats and mediums. He is a 'Rotten Tomatoes-approved' critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild of India. He previously worked with the Hindustan Times, where he wrote hundreds of film and television reviews, produced videos, and interviewed the biggest names in Indian and international cinema. At the Express, he writes a column titled Post Credits Scene, and has hosted a podcast called Movie Police.
You can find him on X at @RohanNaahar, and write to him at He is also on LinkedIn and Instagram. ... Read More
