The ending of My Year at Oxford feels more like poverty propaganda than materialistic; let me explain why. The film, based on the novel of the same name, follows Anna De La Vega, a young woman who receives a job offer at Goldman Sachs, but decides to postpone it for a year to live the life of her dreams abroad, in Delusion Land—that is, at Oxford. In the film, Anna decides to have fun with her English teacher, Jamie Davenport. Don't worry, there's no secrecy, as he's just a researcher filling in for her busy, lazy professor. Everything seems magical, just as Anna dreamed it, but all good things must come to an end, and they fall apart for Anna. That said, let's move on to the ending of My Year at Oxford.
The big reveal halfway through the film is that Cecelia isn't pursuing Jamie romantically, but is instead the former girlfriend of his deceased brother. The reason Cecelia is always around Jamie isn't because she likes him, but because she gives Eddie closure and, at the same time, can help Jamie overcome the same suffering his brother experienced. I know, it's very harsh, but that's the story. To me, Cecelia seemed like a character who was there specifically to make Anna look bad, because at first it seemed like she was trying to flirt with a guy who had a girlfriend.
Director: Iain Morris
Writers: Julia Whelan, Allison Burnett, Melissa Osborne
Stars: Sofia Carson, Corey Mylchreest, Dougray Scott
Then, she makes a fool of herself by breaking into his house when he's in treatment while she thinks he's having an affair with Cecelia, and the whole thing is a disaster and makes her look terrible. But Cecelia subverts the "other lover" cliché, making this movie more interesting than I thought it would be. First, she's not an ex. But more importantly, at the beginning of the movie, she was warning Anna not to break his heart, instead of telling her to stay away from her man.
I guess Jamie and Cecelia are especially close because the only thing they have in common is Eddie. Basically, they support each other through something that, frankly, is impossible to overcome. It's a very sweet friendship, and Cecelia becomes a very endearing character throughout the film. Oh, but she mentions that she'll be a spinster for life, something she forgets after finding a date at the end of the film.
The reason Jamie doesn't tell Anna about his illness is that he just wanted to have fun in his final months. But like any human being would do in this situation, he didn't want Anna to ruin his life and find out about his cancer, only to stay and spend his last days with him. But, of course, that's exactly what she ends up doing, because this is a romance. Jamie watched his brother suffer during the final months of his treatment and knew that wasn't how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. If there's no certainty about a cure, there's no point in wasting time on it. You understand that Jamie is the kind of man who truly lives his life. Even his way of analyzing poetry is whimsical, and there's nothing in him that suggests "dying in a few months." So, from the beginning, we get the impression that he's the kind of person who lives in the present and doesn't care what the future holds.
Furthermore, Jamie is rich, and his decisions clearly come from a place of privilege. Obviously, if Anna were in his place, she would have fought to continue living, and on the other hand, he probably would have done everything possible to save her. While I can understand his desire to live the rest of his days as best as possible, it's natural for his father to hate the idea. He's losing his only son. It's not a one-off; I can't even imagine losing two sons in the same way.
The great mystery of My Year at Oxford is the conversation Jamie and his father had the day Eddie died. Now, we don't have a definitive answer about what he said to Jamie, but we know what it implied, and it was probably something that made Eddie seem like the better son. So it could have been something like, "I lost the wrong son," which was reason enough for Jamie not to speak to him afterward. But William obviously doesn't want to lose Jamie; he was grieving and saying whatever came to mind, and to top it all off, the condition was genetic, so he obviously wasn't prepared to lose his other son in the same way.
My Year at Oxford ends with Jamie taking his last breath in Anna's arms because he refused to seek further treatment for his terminal cancer. Shortly after his death, Anna sets out on the grand European tour, just as Jamie expressed his desire, but completely alone. She visits all the places he wanted to visit (with her imaginary self by her side), living in the moment before returning to Oxford as his replacement, and even bringing out the infamous Victoria sponge to bribe students. Jamie is nothing more than a memory at this point, but Anna has found the strength to carry on.
In the film, both Jamie and Anna read a collection of poems titled "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath. You could say the title poem mirrors Anna's life, in which she is the rider reluctantly pulled along by the wild, rampaging horse that is Jamie. I guess you could call it her "manic pixie dream." The narrator of the poem transforms psychologically throughout the poem, barely able to hold on to a horse that makes her feel alive. At first glance, it might seem that the horse is almost suicidal in this situation, and that the rider is simply going with the flow, but she is transformed mentally and emotionally in the process, and then charges headlong into the morning.
Furthermore, Jamie shows Anna a first edition of "Walden," a book by Henry David Thoreau. He wrote this book in isolation and spoke extensively about the importance of living with agency. Throughout the film, Anna undergoes a profound transformation, most notable in how her interpretation of Thoreau changes at the end. At first, this idea confirms Anna's highly organized life plan—"college, Oxford, Goldman Sachs, etc."—but everything changes completely at the end, when she comes to appreciate that fleeting moments of happiness can be deeply meaningful. Thus we see Anna live each day as it comes, deliberately rather than worrying about the future.
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