This publish incorporates main spoilers for “My Oxford 12 months.”
Netflix could be liable for one in all the very best restricted sequence of the yr in “Adolescence,” however that does not imply the streamer has forgotten how one can churn out the simply binge-able melodramas that helped it win the streaming wars. “My Oxford 12 months” is the most recent Netflix romance movie and it is, properly, nonsense actually. But it surely’s type of enjoyable nonsense in that it makes no try in any respect to apologize for its younger grownup modern-day fairy story naiveté.
The movie stars Sofia Carson, who performed Nora Parisi in Netflix’s “Carry-On” and has been making a reputation for herself as an aspiring queen of Netflix romantic dramas, starting with 2022’s “Purple Hearts” and persevering with on to the romantic comedy “The Life Record” (which dominated Netflix’s prime charts in 2025). Now, she’s returned for extra romance with “My Oxford 12 months,” a BookTok fantasy come to life through which she performs Anna De La Vega, an American scholar who spends a yr learning Victorian poetry on the College of Oxford. As soon as there, she virtually instantly falls for English DPhil scholar and tutor Jamie Davenport (Corey Mylchreest), who charms Anna along with his love of poetry and willingness to sing Coldplay actually badly.
After the pair get off to a nasty begin when Jamie splashes Anna by driving by way of a close-by puddle along with his automobile, it does not take lengthy for the latter to fall for the previous’s British appeal. And whereas most of that comes about because of their shared love of Victorian literature, it is helped enormously by Jamie’s terrible rendition of Colplay’s “Yellow” at a karaoke night time. Jamie’s dorky aspect instantly causes Anna to swoon, and the remainder of the movie sees them embark on a passionate love affair that turns a bit maudlin when Jamie, er, dies. Sure, issues take a flip because the film goes on, however for the primary half not less than, it is simply good quaint romantic cheese, and the karaoke scene is without doubt one of the finest examples.
The entire scene is one prolonged romance film cliché whereby the heartthrob makes a idiot of himself, thereby revealing an endearing dorkiness that shortly causes his admirer to drop her guard. You’ve got seen it a thousand occasions earlier than, from “500 Days of Summer time” to “P.S. I Love You,” and in “My Oxford 12 months” there isn’t any try and subvert any of the usual tropes. It is simply plain foolish however type of enjoyable in a cringe-inducing means. Poor Mylchreest needed to do it a number of occasions, too, which suggests there aren’t solely alternate takes but additionally a number of variations of the scene with a very totally different tune.
The Karaoke scene in My Oxford 12 months virtually featured a George Michael hit
Corey Mylchreest spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about “My Oxford 12 months” and his expertise filming the Netflix romance. The actor, who beforehand performed King George in “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story,” additionally offered some perception into the Karaoke scene, which he apparently discovered simply as troublesome to observe as the remainder of us did. He admitted to the outlet it is “a really painful one for me to observe” and that he attended a solid and crew screening with a hat on simply so he might pull it down and block his ears throughout that scene. “God it was so dangerous,” he added. If it is troublesome to observe, it should have been even more durable to shoot, then, particularly since Mylchreest needed to movie a number of takes.
Certainly, in the identical interview, the actor additionally revealed that he shot the karaoke scene with two totally different songs. Requested if he had a say in what the tune could be for this scene, Mylchreest replied, “I used to be up for something, however [the song] was determined beforehand,” earlier than including, “We truly filmed two variations of that. We filmed it with ‘Yellow’ and we additionally filmed it with ‘Careless Whisper’ as a result of we did not know what we might get the rights to.” Based on the actor, he additionally needed to shoot two variations with every tune — one take the place Jamie was “making an attempt to do it type of sincerely, then failing, then going to joke” and one other the place he is “taken out the entire thing from the start.”
Regardless of his aversion to watching the completed scene, Mylchreest did concede that director Iain Morris had chosen the best tune with “Yellow” relatively than George Michael’s 1984 hit. “I perceive why they selected that,” he admitted, “as a result of additionally at that time Jamie — not that there’s an higher hand — however has had the higher hand over Anna. He splashed her […] there’s a little bit of an influence dynamic. I believe it was vital that in that second, she will get the higher hand on him, and he does not take cost of it.” “Yellow” does have that falsetto half, which makes for an vital beat the place Jamie goes from singing type of okay to simply screeching, and it is this that lastly causes Sofia Carson’s Anna to crack up. In that sense, Morris did make the best alternative, though whether or not that was merely all the way down to the actual fact he could not get the rights to “Careless Whisper” stays unclear.
“My Oxford 12 months” is now streaming on Netflix.
