‘Me Before You’ leaves audiences stunned
Emilia Clarke as Lou and Sam Claflin as Will share a moment on a beach in “Me Before You.” Photo by: popsugar.com
By Hannah Corwin// Staff Writer
“Me Before You” starring Sam Clafin and Emilia Clarke, is a wonderful movie based off of the best-selling novel of the same title by Jojo Moyes. The movie, set in the present day United Kingdom, centers around Will Traynor (played by Sam Claflin), a once adventurous London banker who was hit by a motorcycle and sustained paralyzing injuries. Now a quadriplegic living back in his small hometown, he is “forced” to meet the energetic Louisa “Lou” Clark (played by Emilia Clarke). Lou, as she is called, is a quirky woman in her mid-twenties who has just lost her job as a waitress. In order to help her parents make ends meet, she takes a job as a caregiver to the depressed Will. What starts off as just a job for Lou turns into a race against time as she learns that in six months, Will will be headed to Switzerland, where he can commit doctor-assisted suicide. Newly determined to show Will how wonderful life can be, Lou tries to get him out of the house and living to his greatest potential, falling in love with him along the way.
“Me Before You” is a curiously thought-provoking movie that mixes romance with difficult topics. Clarke wonderfully portrays the enthusiastic Lou and beautifully pulls off the character’s eclectic sense of fashion. No one but Clarke could have pulled off Lou’s fashionable quirks, including her spotted kitten heels, butterfly hairclips, and bumblebee tights. Her determination and love of life is infectious, and makes me want to live my life as wonderfully as Lou lives hers.
Clafin is heartbreaking as Will Traynor, and not because of his recent paralysis, but because of how characters in the film treat him. Throughout the course of the movie, when he is in public, people watch him and murmur. You can see the pity in their eyes, but the viewer doesn’t want these onlookers to pity Will. The viewer wants them to mind their own business and leave him alone. It’s inevitable that the audience will find itself rooting for Will and for Lou in this race against time love story.
“Me Before You” is not just a love story that deals with hard and even controversial issues. Along the way, you can’t help but laugh at the strange combination Lou and Will make as a couple when her enthusiasm and his cynicism butt heads. Lou and Will’s budding relationship also shows a sharp contrast to Lou’s relationship with her boyfriend of seven years, Patrick, played Matthew Lewis, an actor who is better known for his role as Neville Longbottom. Patrick is an exercised-obsessed man who prioritizes his athletics over the girl he supposedly loves. When you compare Patrick to Will, who will do anything to make Lou happy, it’s hard to feel sorry for him.
This movie will make you laugh, make you cry and make you think. This isn’t a movie to watch lightly though. While I highly recommend it, it might not be first date material or a movie you watch so you can feel warm and fuzzy inside. “Me Before You” may make you cry, but it is worth the box of tissues you will inevitably use.