My Oxford Year spoilers ahead.
The My Oxford Year ending left us with a lot of questions, including how its conclusion compares to Julia Whelan's novel of the same title, which it's adapted from. So let's unpack the new Netflix hit's ending.
The story of My Oxford Year follows ambitious American student Anna (played by Sofia Carson and known as Ella in the novel,) who spends a year at university in Oxford, and ends up falling in love with student teacher Jamie (Queen Charlotte's Corey Mylchreest).
While the pair agreed to keep things casual, their feelings deepen beyond what they agreed. This creates problems when Anna discovers that Jamie has been diagnosed with a rare, terminal cancer, and he has decided not to receive treatment and instead make the most of the time that he has left.
The endings of both the novel and the Netflix film do differ, though – we've broken down the ways that both stories conclude for My Oxford Year, book and movie. Spoilers ahead.
Wait, does Jamie die? My Oxford Year's ending explained
In the novel, Jamie has the opportunity to travel across Europe with Ella (played by Carson as Anna in the film) after getting a reprieve from his suffering from pneumonia after participating in a medical trial.
However, the film takes a rather more tragic turn, with Carson's Anna waking to find Jamie unconscious beside her, leading her to sit faithfully with him on his deathbed. She then goes on the Europe trip alone, imagining that he is there with her. The film shows Anna living these adventures that she dreamed of sharing with Jamie, fully portraying the impact he had on her life.
“Even though it's clear Anna's alone at the end. We left it a little bit ambiguous because we wanted the film to end with hope and with light,” Carson has said.
Mylchreest has also weighed in that he believes the movie ending is “better” and “more powerful” from its deviation from the book. "It's better like that. 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,” he added. "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."
Leave them out of your straight-boy angst montage.
