Real meaning behind that final montage in My Oxford Year: The emotional ending explained

So, My Oxford Year just dropped on Netflix, and I have to say, it’s as sweet as it is sad. It starts off feeling like a cosy romantic drama, but as it goes on, it turns into something deeper. I don’t usually go for overly emotional endings, but this one works. It’s tender, thoughtful, and stays with you.

The story follows Anna De La Vega, a bright and ambitious student from New York who’s spending a year at Oxford to study poetry. She’s got her life planned out; a big job waiting for her back home, a clear path ahead. But everything shifts when she meets Jamie Davenport, her poetry tutor.

Jamie’s clever, funny, and full of charm. What starts as something casual between them slowly becomes more serious, even though they both know Anna’s time in Oxford is limited. Just as they’re falling properly in love, Anna discovers Jamie has been keeping something from her, and it changes everything.

So, do they actually go on the ‘grand tour’?

via Netflix

They plan to but it doesn’t happen the way they imagined.

When Jamie starts pulling away, Anna thinks he might be hiding something, maybe even seeing someone else. But when she shows up at his flat, she finds him connected to chemotherapy equipment. He’s been quietly going through treatment for a rare and incurable cancer, the same one that took his brother’s life.

Jamie never wanted her to know. He didn’t want her to give up her future for him. But Anna makes her own choice. She stays, turns down her job offer in New York, and commits to making the most of the time they have left.

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They imagine a future together, travelling across Europe, eating and laughing their way through cities they’ve only read about. They call it their “grand tour.” But before they can go, Jamie’s health declines quickly. A case of pneumonia takes away his strength, and in the end, he dies in hospital, with Anna beside him.

What’s powerful is how the film shows the trip anyway. There’s a montage of Jamie and Anna walking through Paris, riding in a gondola, standing on a beach. Then, partway through, Jamie disappears. In reality, those moments are just Anna’s memory or maybe what she wished could have been.

So, what happens to Anna?

via Netflix

Even though she loses Jamie, Anna decides to go on the tour alone. She visits all the places they planned; drinks wine by the Seine, wanders the streets of Amsterdam, rides through Venice. She’s grieving, but she’s also doing what Jamie wanted: Living fully, despite the sadness.

When she returns to Oxford, she doesn’t go back to her old plan. Instead, she stays and takes over Jamie’s job as a poetry tutor. On her first day of class, she brings a pound cake, just like he did when they first met, and tells her students that poetry isn’t just something you learn. It’s something you feel, and something that changes you.

The film’s ending is a bit different from the book. But the version we see on screen feels more honest and somehow, more hopeful.

My Oxford Year is available on Netflix now.For all the latest Netflix news and drops, like The Holy Church of Netflix on Facebook.