The Hollyweird movie, Me Before You, recently opened and is described as a “romantic drama” film. The movie is based on the novel of the same name by author Jojo Moyes, who is an English journalist and romance novelist.
Author Jojo Moyes
According to Life News, the movie stars Emilia Clarke as Lou Clark, a woman who accepts a job as caregiver for young quadriplegic Will Traynor (Sam Claflin). Billed as a romantic comedy, the film shows the two falling in love and ends with Will choosing death before a life with Lou. While disability activists and most media reviewers slammed the plot, some critics (from AP to Vanity Fair) still praised and cried over the “romantic” film that they described as a “mixture of classic romantic movies of the past.”
You can read the whole movie plot (with spoilers) here at Life News.
Wikipedia describes the controversy surrounding this film: “The film has suffered a backlash from many people in the disabled community due to what they perceive as an underlying message that people with disabilities are a burden on their families and careers, and claim the film promotes the view that people are better off dead than disabled. They view the film as advocating suicide so that their loved ones can “live boldly”. The #MeBeforeEuthanasia backlash has been led by celebrities with disabilities; Liz Carr, Penny Pepper, and Cherylee Houston.“
This hasn’t stopped the media from promoting this “romance” and human euthanasia story.
Life News notes the reactions of some in the media:
“As Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson reviewed the “pleasant and sad little movie” containing “wit and style,” he argued that assisted suicide was the film’s greatest strength.”
“For Rolling Stone, movie critic Peter Travers wrote about the “four-hankie tearjerker.” While he accused the film of being a “sob story that will go down easy at the box office,” he argued that “you can’t blame audiences too much for being seduced by two shining young stars in a movie romance that hits the spot, bitter and sweet.”
“Even feminist site Bustle recommended bringing tissues to the theater. Writer Olivia Truffaut-Wong couldn’t gush enough over the film. “If you don’t leave Me Before You with red eyes and a sniffling nose, then either you hate crying in public, or you weren’t paying attention during the movie,” she began before arguing that “the movie is probably best described as a mixture of classic romantic movies of the past.”
Another Hollyweird movie I will not be seeing.
DCG