Surprised by Oxford, one of my favorite memoirs, is now a movie.
Written by literature professor Carolyn Weber, the memoir describes her conversion to Christ.
But, it also features her romance with the equally brilliant Christian “TDH.” (Shorthand for tall, dark, and handsome.)
I signed up to stream the movie when it appeared at the Heartland International Film Festival in early October 2022.
If you act the week this blog post runs, you, too, can watch the movie in your own home. See the website. It costs $14.
The opportunity ends on October 16.
What does Surprised by Oxford show the reader and/or film goer?
Let me count the ways:
It’s mostly about how God can woo a heart:
- Broken by the past.
- Determined to seal off the chance of being hurt again.
- Untrusting of men.
- Hostile to Christianity.
- Hidden behind intellectualism.
- Lonely amid new friends in a strange land.
- Homesick.
- Hurting.
At least, that’s what I’ve read and seen of the book and movie.
The movie website explains it this way:
Brilliant but emotionally guarded Caro Drake arrives in Oxford with the singular goal of attaining her PhD – but through a turbulent friendship with a charming young man, Caro begins to open herself up to mystery, vulnerability, and love.
Surprised by Oxford Movie IMDb
Reader and viewer reaction: to Oxford proper
One of the stars of both the movie and the memoir is Oxford itself.
Weber describes the ancient town with love and insight.
The movie shows it to us.
I’ve written here about how reading the book and visiting Oxford affected me in 2013.
While watching the movie with my young adult daughter, her eyes lit up at a dining scene.
“That looks like Hogwarts!”
I, meanwhile, exclaimed at places I’ve visited. “Ah, the Bodleian!”
My daughter smiled. Books, libraries, and her mother. She knows them well.
I loved the churches, the music, the elegant dinners.
Weber’s Oxford experience–okay, she was in graduate school–was world’s apart from my years at UCLA.
The movie reminded me, yet again.
(But, I have vigorous intellectual conversations with my husband, which is satisfying, too.)
But the romance?
While the movie shows us Weber’s intellectualism, the memoir better describes the reasoning.
For good reason. The film runs 102 minutes. The book is 480 pages long.
A movie has to compress events. The book provides a detailed read over a longer period of time at university.
It explores the romantic poets Weber studied. The title, of course, nods to C. S. Lewis–an Oxford don who titled his own spiritual memoir, Surprised by Joy.
Lewis turns up in this movie–when TDH introduces Weber to Surprised by Joy, and when Weber visits Lewis’ favorite pub The Eagle and Child.
Take away?
I love stories like Carolyn Weber’s.
Mixing books, learning, new cultural experiences, Christianity, simple, love, and fun–are the best kinds of stories.
A movie that reflects those themes and shows us new locales through the eyes of a young woman striving to find herself–works really well, too.
Here’s the movie trailer:
Tweetables
Surprised by Oxford: a joy as memoir or movie! Click to Tweet
A book or a memoir? Which Surprised by Oxford shows Oxford best? Click to Tweet
Thoughts? Reactions? Lurker?