This is a film based on a true story, but it doesn’t make this faith-based romantic drama look or feel anything like reality. It is adapted from a memoir by the American author and academic Carolyn Weber about her time at Oxford on a full scholarship writing a PhD on the Romantics. I felt it in the pit of my stomach about 10 minutes in when it dawned on me the “surprise” was that she found God.
Directed by Ryan Whitaker, this is a film very much in keeping with the conventions of Christian drama: blandly inspirational with a glazed-over style of acting, aside from some gobsmackingly unsubtle eccentric professors, hammily performed by actors including Simon Callow. (I half-wondered if the crew stumbled across poor Callow on the streets of the city and frogmarched him on to the set.)
Rose Reid plays Caro, a hardworking and gifted American student who arrives at the fictional Tirian college on a full scholarship. Flashbacks to her childhood shine a light on Caro’s drive and determination. In the present day, we get Oxford-for-foreigners, all pints, and crazy Brit traditions, architectural splendour, even a horse-mounted bobby offering her a lift in the wee hours.
In her first couple of weeks, agnostic-bordering-atheist Caro meets tousle-haired fellow American Kent (Ruairi O’Connor), a Christian who plans to stay chaste until marriage. (“It’s more a well-intentioned attempt than a reality.”) The will-they-won’t-they relationship between Caro and Kent is deadly boring (and conducted within the bounds of a U certificate). The intellectual debate between them on the nature of faith – touching on CS Lewis’s memoir about his conversion to Christianity, Surprised by Joy – is even more dreary. Like a lot of faith movies, it reminded me of Socialist Workers selling papers on the high street: the purpose is to convert people but really it feels like they are just talking to themselves.
• Surprised by Oxford screens on 27 September and 1 October in UK cinemas
