Netflix’s latest chart-topper, My Oxford Year, adapted from Julia Whelan’s novel, is proof that you can start with a potentially inspiring plot (and a title that practically screams prestige — it says Oxford, duh!) and still end up with something so flat it almost hurts your brain.

In short, this is the story of Anna De La Vega (Sofia Carson, Netflix’s new go-to star), a bright young American who defers a lucrative Goldman Sachs job to study Victorian poetry at Oxford.

That alone could have been a brilliant narrative: first-generation immigrant, pressure to earn for her family, choosing passion over practicality. Unfortunately, Netflix seems to have looked at that pitch and thought, “Yes, but what if we made it about a rich playboy British professor instead?” Honestly, the way Netflix has sabotaged the storyline is beyond comprehensible.

Enter Jamie Davenport (Corey Mylchreest), the driver of the speeding Jaguar (the car, not the animal) that splashes Anna within minutes of her arrival. This is their “meet-cute,” though it’s less “cute” and more “you’ve-just-ruined-my-dress.” Moments later, at a chips shop, she spots him trying to hide from an angry ex. And she avenges immediately as she outs him to said ex, who storms in ready to fillet him. Not a very romantic first encounter, though.

And later it turns out, Jamie would be her professor for the entire duration of her Masters, something she really didn’t hope for. (She was literally there for Professor Styan, who was her “hero”. Who’d even like it if you get a proxy professor?) And Jamie didn’t waste a moment to flirt with his American student.

I found the whole thing so problematic. She is supposed to study there, not to flirt with the professor. And most importantly, Oxford has banned any sort of romantic relationship between its teachers and students since 2017. And the novel this movie is based on was published in 2018. Besides having a boring plot, this is a crucial thing the book and the movie got wrong. Then again, it’s just a rom-com, you keep logic out of your brain while watching cute stuff.

Also Jamie is a walking red flag. He oscillates between grand gestures — taking Anna to Oxford libraries as she mentions her love for dusty, old, first-edition books — and public snogging sessions with other women. They agree to keep things “casual,” but Anna, hopeless romantic that she is, inevitably catches feelings.

The trouble is, what should be Anna’s story of self-discovery becomes the Jamie Show, complete with his illness, family drama, and tortured-but-handsome persona. It’s supposed to be a tearjerker — Netflix literally labels it “bittersweet heartfelt tearjerker” on the app — but the sweetness is diluted, the bitter is barely there, and the tears are just so forced.

Part of the problem is the tonal confusion. The film starts like a breezy rom-com à la Emily in Paris Goes to Oxford, complete with the obligatory attractive gay best friend Charlie (Harry Trevaldwyn) and equally attractive straight best friend Maggie (Esmé Kingdom).Then, without warning, the movie pivots to tragedy — except not really, because everyone is still impossibly photogenic while enduring heartbreak.

What’s most frustrating is that My Oxford Year could have been more. Anna’s backstory — immigrant roots, high-stakes career sacrifice, academic passion — is rich material. Instead, it’s relegated to window dressing for a romance that feels both ethically questionable and emotionally undercooked. By the end, you don’t feel like you’ve been on Anna’s Oxford journey; you feel like you’ve been on Jamie’s extended pity tour, although our wealthy boy Jamie has loads of vintage cars and lives in a giant palace.

The supporting cast exists mainly to check Netflix’s “diversity and inclusion” boxes. There’s nothing inherently wrong with representation, of course, but here it feels more like corporate obligation than organic storytelling. Otherwise, why would Anna need a gay best friend?

In the end, My Oxford Year never commits to its own thesis. It wants to be a warm rom-com and a gut-wrenching drama at the same time, but it lacks the courage to follow through on either. It coasts on conventionally attractive leads, glossy cinematography, and a borrowed Coldplay song, hoping you won’t notice the hollowness underneath. But Oxford, for all its thousand-year history, still expects you to do the work — and this film simply hasn’t.

My Oxford Year is now streaming on Netflix, in case you’re in the mood for an almost-tearjerker that doesn’t quite earn the tears.