‘My Oxford Year’ stars explain why the ending diverges from the book

This article contains spoilers about My Oxford Year.

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…

This Alfred Tennyson quote is a guiding principle for Anna (Sofia Carson) in My Oxford Year, which hit Netflix on Friday. Anna, an American graduate student in Oxford, meets and falls in love with her professor, Jamie (Corey Mylchreest), despite both of them saying that their fling would remain purely fun and casual.

Eventually, Anna discovers the reason for Jamie’s reluctance to commit — he has a rare form of terminal cancer, which he has decided to stop seeking treatment for so that he may enjoy the limited time he has left.

All of this follows the thrust of Julia Whelan’s novel upon which the film is based (though technically, her book was first developed from a screenplay, so it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario). However, the novel and film significantly diverge when it comes to their conclusions.

Whelan’s book ends with Jamie gaining more time after a bout with pneumonia and a medical trial that allows him to make good on his promises to travel through Europe with Anna (Ella in the book). In contrast, the film ends with Anna at his bedside as he slips away, envisioning him on her adventures through Europe, only for him to fade from those images, revealing that she is alone.

It’s a poetic and tragic ending, and for those who might feel it’s ambiguous, Mylchreest puts it bluntly: “The guy’s dead.”

“It’s better like that,” he continues more gently. “It’s more powerful. That is the direction that the book is heading in, and it would feel like hypocrisy for Jamie to speak all these things and for Anna to be understanding that philosophy of life [and not end there].”

“The impressive thing is that Jamie believes all of these things — forever is composed of nows — and he doesn’t have that many nows left,” Mylchreest adds. “So, what’s really amazing is that he’s doing all of this stuff and believes all these things with really not that much time left. If that wasn’t true, it would feel like we’re undervaluing his beliefs.”

Still, the dreamy sense of time at the film’s conclusion is intentionally meant to leave a bit of a question mark hanging over everything. “Even though it’s clear Anna’s alone at the end,” explains Carson, “we left it a little bit ambiguous because we wanted the film to end with hope and with light.”

“Which is why we wanted to show them living all those things together,” she continues. “And then when he disappears and when he’s gone and you assume she’s lost him, that element of hope and the idea of life after love and life after loss is a really powerful thing.”

That’s not to say changing the film to definitively include Jamie’s death was a foregone conclusion when production began. In fact, it was a subject of debate up until the final cut. “There were conversations up until the very last minute of locking the cut,” Carson, who is also a producer on the film, reveals. “Our main producer, Marty Bowen, didn’t want Jamie to die. because he wanted the possibility, the future of them together.”

The film ends with Anna teaching her own class at Oxford, beginning her first lecture in the exact same way that Jamie did. But before that, we see her traveling through all the places Jamie had mentioned — Paris, Venice, Amsterdam, Athens — together, with Jamie ultimately fading from her memories.

Mylchreest and Carson actually shot on location in all of these scenic spots, but while Mylchreest got to take the trip, his character did not. Instead, we’re meant to interpret the montage as Anna’s way of carrying Jamie’s spirit with her through her life. “She’s doing this in his honor and in honor of their love,” Carson explains. “Carrying the life lessons that he shared with her that changed her life forever. I love the idea that they would’ve had the chance, but with how we see him in that last scene in the bed, there was no universe where that would’ve been possible. So, she lived their dream for them.”

Even within that, there was much back and forth as to what that last sequence should look like. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see the moments of Anna alone,” Carson notes. “I asked for an edit where, once Jamie disappears and you see her taking in the beach, the movie would end there. It felt very emotional, but it was a little bit too jarring of ending. It felt a little bit more conclusive.”

Additionally, they tested various versions of the ending with audiences and locked in on what felt most emotionally resonant. “The biggest tearjerker moment was when Jamie would disappear, and then, you would see her in all the places alone,” Carson says. “There was a lot of debate, but we all agreed where it ended was the most beautiful ending for Anna and Jamie.”

This ending also emphasizes some of the more complex themes at play, particularly the right to die with dignity and on one’s own terms. Jamie, having watched his brother go through agonizing treatment, chooses to enjoy life until he no longer can. For both actors, it opened up a lot of questions within themselves.

“I was playing someone who is directly facing that question themselves with regard to their own life, and body,” says Mylchreest.  “It would be very difficult to not meditate on those things. You develop some new opinions about it. For research, you talk to people that are dealing with things, and it can be quite dark at times, but through that, you see the need for light.

“Through talking to people who were facing situations like Jamie’s or who had loved ones facing situations like Jamie’s, even when they’re remembering really horrible things, you see these moments of pure joy, laughter, and love,” he continues. “You recognize how naturally those moments occur in times of darkness with those themes of life and death. You get a greater understanding of where Jamie comes from, why he is the way that he is, and why he has the strength to think the things that he thinks.”

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In some ways, Carson faces an even more difficult task, portraying a character who must accept her partner’s choices in spite of the loss they will mean for her. “It was a really interesting dynamic, the way that Anna understood and respected Jamie’s decision,” she says. “She never asks him to change his mind, ever. She gives him that dignity and that respect. Anna faces these things in a different way than he does, but it transforms her forever.

“I hope what people feel after watching this film goes back to the finality and the preciousness of life,” she concludes. “Life is too short for us to not live it in love. To not live it in joy and fulfillment. To not be exactly everything that we’ve always wanted to be. That’s the biggest question that our film poses — and I hope that’s what people take away.”