Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | Film | August 4, 2025
My Oxford Year is Sofia Carson’s fourth Netflix film, following Purple Hearts, The Life List, and Carry On. I’ve seen them all, and yet it wasn’t until I looked her up on IMDb that I even realized she starred in every one. Disney’s Descendants movies made her a hit with younger audiences, but without that built-in fanbase, she doesn’t leave much of an impression onscreen.
Carson feels almost AI-generated—tailor-made for middle-tier Netflix romances engineered to tug at the heartstrings. But I couldn’t shake the sense that My Oxford Year would’ve been much stronger with an actress who has more than three facial expressions and some depth behind the eyes (Zoey Deutch, for instance). I’m not trying to be mean—mostly because my daughters asked me to be nice—but they’re also the ones who, midway through My Oxford Year, kept asking, “Why does she make the same face in every movie?”
In three of these films, Carson plays the romantic lead opposite equally forgettable men—Kyle Allen in The Life List, Nicholas Galitzine in Purple Hearts, and Corey Mylchreest here. The formula is the same: they clash, they banter, they fall in love. In this one, she plays Anna, who has her life meticulously planned. After a year studying Victorian poetry at Oxford under a famed professor, she’s slated to start a high-powered job at Goldman Sachs. But when that professor is suddenly replaced, her new instructor turns out to be Jamie, a charming British cad with whom she’s already shared a memorably disastrous encounter.
The two agree to a casual relationship—just “fun”—since Anna’s heading back to America and Jamie has a mysterious reason he can’t fully commit. But of course, they fall in love, and the plans they made unravel.
I won’t spoil the details, but I did listen to the Julia Whelan novel it’s based on, largely because Whelan is my second-favorite audiobook narrator (Marin Ireland remains unmatched). I’d convinced myself that anything Whelan read would be great just because she read it—until I listened to My Oxford Year. It’s not bad, exactly, but it plays like Jojo Moyes-lite, which gives you a pretty good idea of where it’s heading.
And here’s the thing: there’s real potential in My Oxford Year. It’s derivative, sure, but it could’ve been a proper romantic tearjerker. Corey Mylchreest even does a decent job of grounding the film emotionally. But Carson is the weak link. She’s too polished, too inert. She’s a Netflix cipher, and for a movie like this to land, you need someone who buzzes with feeling. Someone who can ugly cry. You can’t sell heartbreak when you’re making the same face whether you’re smiling or sobbing.
None of this will stop My Oxford Year from being a hit—Carson has her fanbase, and the story is pure Goodreads catnip—but it could’ve been so much more than just watchable. It could’ve wrecked us. Instead, the only standout is Dougray Scott, who plays Jamie’s father and isn’t afraid to go raw, to look a little messy. Carson, meanwhile, remains a blank canvas with a single tear. She gestures toward sadness, but only in the way a production assistant waves a cue card asking the audience to please clap.
