When I first heard that Julia Whelan’s popular novel, My Oxford Year, was being adapted into a movie for Netflix, starring Sofia Carson and Corey Mylchreest, I saw the vision.
When the trailer came out, I already knew that most viewers would be aghast to find that it isn’t a romcom. There’s something to be said about how movies are being marketed these days, particularly when they are a book adaptation. But that’s a conversation for another day.
Having read the book, I knew My Oxford Year was likely going to elicit reactions similar to Me Before You, than, say, a cute romcom like Set It Up. The story follows a young American girl who arrives at Oxford University — her dream school since she was a child — and has a job lined up for her when she returns. She clashes with Jamie, who turns out to be one of her professors. The story is about her evolving dynamic — mostly interspersed with poetry — with Jamie, and the choices she makes in the light of these changes.
Only, it turned out that the adaptation wasn’t quite the match for the book. Here is a near-exhaustive list of all the differences between My Oxford Year, the book and the movie.
They changed the main character!
Anna De la Vega was originally Ella Duran
In the book, Eleanor Duran, or Ella, is an opinionated girl from Ohio who gets into Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.
In the movie, the character is named Anna De La Vega, and her roots are dramatically changed. She’s from New York instead. This wouldn’t be so striking, except bagging the Rhodes Scholarship added a nuance to Ella’s personality. In the book, she explains what other Rhodes Scholars are like in her cohort, and remarks, “Let me demystify this: to get a Rhodes you have to be slightly unhinged.”
In light of this, along with other small omissions about Ella/Anna, it feels as though her otherwise well-rounded personality has been noticeably flattened.
Anna’s Job Status
Political Consultant versus Goldman Sachs
In the book My Oxford Year, Eleanor (Anna in the movie) is working part-time as a political consultant on a campaign — a role deeply tied to her background in education policy. She receives the job offer in a call from her soon-to-be boss, Gavin, while standing in the immigration queue at Heathrow. The job is set to transition into a full-time position once she returns to the U.S., and Gavin (with his sharp one-liners and friendly banter) remains a recurring and memorable character throughout the novel.
In the movie, however, her professional background is significantly altered. Anna is said to have a job lined up at Goldman Sachs in New York — a position that comes with prestige and financial security, something her family frequently boasts about.
Anna’s Dad Is Alive
One of the most significant character changes in the movie is Anna’s family background — specifically, the fact that her father is alive and well. In Julia Whelan’s book, Eleanor lost her father in a tragic car accident when she was young. That early trauma shaped much of who she is: her tendency toward emotional self-sufficiency, her strained relationship with her anxious mother, and her general resistance to vulnerability.
This backstory isn’t just flavour, it plays a key role in the latter half of the novel (readers will know the scene), especially when Eleanor opens up to Jamie about her father, something that marks a turning point for her emotionally. Her guardedness, her sense of responsibility, and the complexity of her inner world all stem from that loss.
In the movie, this emotional depth is largely erased. Both of Anna’s parents are alive and portrayed as part of a supportive, tight-knit family unit. While warm and wholesome, this shift removes a central piece of her psychological makeup, making her character arc feel a bit flatter and her emotional choices less layered.
Eddie Versus Oliver
The movie keeps the emotional core of Jamie’s backstory intact — his brother died of cancer, and Jamie still carries the weight of that loss — but there are a few notable tweaks in the details.
In the book, Jamie’s late brother is named Oliver, and Cecelia was his fiancée. This adds a layer of permanence and gravity to Cecelia’s lingering presence in Jamie’s life and explains the emotional loyalty he still feels toward her.
In the movie, Oliver becomes Eddie, and Cecelia is portrayed not as a fiancée, but merely as his girlfriend.
The Horror of the “Meet-Cute”
What happened at the Fish and Chip Shop
In Whelan’s novel, the fish-and-chip shop scene is loaded with awkwardness and secondhand embarrassment. Yes, Jamie nearly runs her over but the real horror begins inside the shop. Ella, in peak tourist mode, excitedly piles every possible condiment onto her plate. In the process, she accidentally bumps into Jamie, and her entire, over-sauced plate flips backwards, directly onto her own chest. Her clothes are completely soiled, which later becomes her first impressions with friends.
How Jamie’s lies are revealed
Even the way Anna/Ella finds out about Jamie’s lies differs. In the book, Jamie first says he’s leaving for Oliver, but only later does Ella discover Oliver has died, prompting her confrontation. When it comes to the thesis lie, film-Jamie vaguely claims he’s busy; Anna learns the truth from a librarian and finds him mid-treatment. In the book, Jamie describes his exact library spot, but when Ella checks, he’s not there. The lie catches up to him.
Jamie’s treatment on his couch versus his bedroom
One of the most moving touches in the book, absent from the film, was how Jamie initially chose to receive treatment on the living room couch.
“I like sleeping here. I save my bedroom for when I feel well. It limits negative associations. The drawing room being the hospital room keeps the bedroom a bedroom.”
A quiet, powerful glimpse into his mindset as a patient.
Later, when his health worsens, he moves everything into the bedroom. That shift — from preserving normalcy to surrendering to illness — felt devastatingly intimate. The film, by contrast, skims over the reality of his patient-hood, never quite reaching this emotional depth.
Anna/Ella as a caregiver
Another small but telling omission from the film: in the book, there’s a scene where Jamie falls ill while driving, and Ella, unfamiliar with British roads and emergency systems, is left panicked and stranded, unsure even of the ambulance number. It’s a brief moment, but it powerfully captures her sense of helplessness and the internal turmoil over whether she’s equipped to care for someone so seriously ill. The movie skips this entirely, instead showing Anna driving with ease, a missed chance to deepen her arc.
The Ending
In the book, the story closes on a more introspective note, as she chooses to break off her plans to return to the U.S. for the political campaign, despite a promotion offered from Gavin, her point of contact on the team. Interestingly, the campaign itself was led by a pregnant woman running for office — a powerful detail that, like many others, the film omits.
One of the most compelling reflections in the book is Ella’s reckoning with choice and consequence:
“It turns out, the act of making a choice, of choosing a path, does not mean the other path disappears. It just means that it will forever run parallel to the one you are on. It means you have to live with knowing what you gave up, which isn’t a bad thing. If anything, it only serves to strengthen my resolve.”
This moment captures the emotional weight of her decision. Ella imagines herself thriving in that alternate version of life, “a superstar,” in her words, and still walks away from it.
The film, by contrast, offers a more tied-up conclusion. Anna is seen turning down a Goldman Sachs offer and, in what feels like an epilogue, stepping into Jamie’s former role as a poetry professor at Oxford. She brings cake to her first class, just as Jamie once did, a quiet but poignant homage. The final scenes suggest a solo grand tour of Europe, visiting all the places Jamie had once recommended — with a dreamy montage that blends memory, fantasy, and tribute.
It’s a satisfying cinematic resolution, even if a little neat. But in doing so, it softens the jagged truth the book leaves us with: that sometimes, even love isn’t enough — and choosing yourself comes at a cost.
Other Little Details
There were also smaller shifts that quietly altered the tone, like how the Euro Trip idea was Ella’s in the book, but it came from Jamie in the movie.
Or the way Oxford is portrayed. In the book, it came through as a textured, lived-in space, full of history, academic politics, and real stakes, partly because Ella was a political consultant whose work and ideology were deeply tied to the setting. In the film, with Anna headed to Goldman Sachs instead, Oxford became more of a backdrop, seen through the lens of a dreamily elite experience rather than something grounded.
That ideological shift also softened the conflict she faces later. In the book, her dilemma about staying or leaving felt weightier, because it was tied to the chance to impact policy and help someone politically. In the film, leaving the job felt more like a financial decision, which made the choice easier, but arguably flatter.
While the movie evokes a similarly visceral emotional reaction as the book, there’s an irony in how translating a story into three dimensions ended up chipping away at the very granular details that gave the book its depth.