HEARTBREAK WITHOUT MUCH HEART

Why 'My Oxford Year' falls flat before 2000s dramas like 'A Walk to Remember'

- By Lakshana N. Palat

Romantic tragedies draw a fan base, for those who are drawn to long, profound, and sorrowful love stories.

To paraphrase the quote from the K-Drama Goblin, there’s something about such yearning. Perhaps, that’s why most of us watch it: We like seeing the extent to which people go to be with each other, even if their fate is already written. The formula is usually brutally straightforward: One has an illness, and the other spends the rest of their lives making them laugh, when they can’t even smile. In the case of Fault in Our Stars, both are ill, perhaps twisting the knife further. Some films succeed in moving us to tears; others, less so.

After the rather tepid My Oxford Year, which felt like a halfhearted execution at best, stifling the profound intensity Cory Mylchreest had already shown in a similar role in Queen Charlotte, it felt necessary to revisit earlier films in the same vein. As you scroll through the list of tragic dramas, you stop at A Walk to Remember.