Rob Lowe... Ally Sheedy... Amanda Pays. I so wanted this movie to work. It just doesn't. It's so cliched - the Yank at Oxford who got there by - let's face it - prostitution; confused and bewildered by the traditions of British University... except that he isn't. Nick doesn't care and walks roughshod over everything; it's hard to sympathise with him. Rona (Ally Sheedy) is a two-dimensional 'coach' and Lady Victoria (Amanda Pays) is the priviliged lady who seems easily prised away from her English beau for a boorish, uncultured and seemingly unintelligent Nick who has the American - and decidedly un-British virtue - of being good at sport which therefore negates his academic failings. It may be a big thing in the USA but it doesn't cut any ice in the UK, which does not have sports scholarships. After a bit of slapstick-style oneupmanship he gets the girl - for a night - and obviously impresses her so much that she goes back to her English boyfriend, but - hey - there's always Rona, and with little preamble and very little development throughout the entire movie he falls for second-best at the end, which pleases everyone concerned as it's the quick way out of this turkey. I doubt if winning one single boat race would make Oxford take an expelled student back. So: an American movie made for Americans to poke fun at the boring, stiff upper lip British in an amazingly inaccurate and superficial way, before falling for the American girl and leaving that boring country and its' silly, clownish inhabitants to their fate. Watch it, so you'll know why you appreciate better things.
Review of Oxford Blues
