Almost two films for the price of one, what starts off as a standard Netflix rom-com sees bookish, focused American MA student Anna take a year to study Victorian Poetry at 'The University Of Oxford' and her privileged, handsome British substitute-lecturer initially clashing as obvious binary opposites, but ultimately they start to find common ground and much more, leading to a revelation that takes the second half of the film in a very different direction. The early scenes are so culture-clashingly genre-predictable that even Anna has a tick-list of touristy and sterotypically US-view things to do and see as she goes to the pub, eats fish and chips, etc. all set to the always-photogenic sights of Oxford, which looks great on screen. With the locations and occasional poetry lending a sprinkling of elevation to the first half's routine rom-com shenanigans, it is down to the two leads (Sofia Carson and Corey Mylechreest) to carry the dramatic weight of the second half, which they do as a couple very effectively, and a strength of this generally pleasant-but-not-earth-shattering movie is that it offers a credibly strong female protagonist for the most part. The on-screen conceit used to deliver the ending is powerfully delivered through effective construction, and listen out for a gloriously-delivered line of salty dialogue in the dinner-table scene.
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