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.)
