#Me and before you movie#
#Me and before you full#

He discovers that she, too, has not been living to her full potential. After Lou’s many failed attempts to communicate with Will, he finally reciprocates conversation and inquires about her life. But when Lou learns Will is so dissatisfied with his current state that he is contemplating assisted suicide, she sets out to prove to him that life is worth living to the absolute fullest. Her colorful disposition, mirrored by her vibrant wardrobe, seems incompatible with Will’s brooding and disapproving demeanor. The juxtaposition of Will and Lou initially seems improbable. They meet when Lou, after being fired from her previous job, accepts a position as Will’s caregiver. While Lou focuses on supporting her family through any means possible, Will must adapt from his life as a wealthy banker to life as a quadriplegic due to a tragic accident. The film follows the unlikely relationship between quirky, enthusiastic Lou Clarke (Emilia Clarke) and paralyzed, moody Will Traynor (Sam Claflin).

#Me and before you movie#

This is a movie where someone in the audience can shout, “Fuck off, Neville!” at Matthew Lewis, who plays Lou’s boyfriend, and get a laugh (as someone did at my screening), but that lightness works against the film when it tries to put on its serious face.While many people are exhausted of the typical “rom-com” flick, Me Before You brings a breath of fresh air to a genre comprised only of seemingly look-alike films with predictable outcomes. But because Me Before You wants to keep everything cheerful, it ends up doing a grave disservice to the reality of disability and turns suicide into something positive. If Me Before You had the emotional maturity to address physician-assisted suicide like The Sea Inside or a similar film, it would at least be worthy of that discussion even if you disagree with the character’s decision. We’re told that Will hates being stuck in a chair because he used to be so active, and his physical therapist reveals to Lou that Will wakes up screaming, but it’s always better to show instead of tell, and Me Before You always wants to be avoid showing anything remotely unpleasant unless it’s melodramatic. Because Me Before You wants to live firmly in the realm of fantasy, it doesn’t want to address the ugliness of living with quadriplegia. Even if we can’t condone his desire, we should at least be able to understand it, and the film’s half-hearted attempts to justify Will’s actions don’t come anywhere close to moving us. The film never gets us to sympathize with Will’s desire to commit suicide. It’s sweet, lovely, and a little cloying, but in a way that goes down fairly smooth until you consider that the film is hiding from maturely addressing disability. They even can dance together in their own way, and the protagonist’s main motivation is to heap as much happiness as she can on Will so that he’ll want to live. There’s a huge wealth fantasy at play since Will can basically give Lou anything. Clarke and Claflin have tremendous chemistry, and we want to see their characters be happy together.ĭirector Thea Sharrock plays right into the pleasure centers of our brain with just the right amount of cheesiness. It’s a movie meant to comfort and give you a fuzzy feeling inside, and it largely succeeds in that attempt thanks to the endearing performance from Clarke who shows that she can play bubbly and effervescent just as easily as she can play the stone-cold killer Khaleesi from Game of Thrones. Tickets to Me Before You should come with a tub of Haagen-Dazs and a warm bath.