There’s nothing like a splendid tear-jerker and “Me Before You” is nothing like a splendid tear-jerker.
What could have been a pleasurable two-hanky romance between a plucky working-lesson girl and a rich quadriplegic gets buried in whimsy and suffocated with a terminal case of the cutesies. Forget art,or even craft: This is the kind of film that can’t even acquire its shameless audience-pandering in order.
It doesn’t help that screenwriter Jojo Moyes (adapting her best-selling novel) and director Thea Sharrock (making her ample-screen debut) do the heroine of the piece fairly insufferable: Luisa has been written as a greatest-hits collection of two-dimensional female screen characters throughout the decades, from the can-effect shopgirls of the 1930s to the manic pixie dream girls of more recent vintage. (Plus, or this is the kind of film that communicates her creative free spirit by having her dress in a kooky parade of lustrous colors and clashing patterns.)
See Video: Watch Emilia Clarke,Sam Claflin acquire Teary in First Trailer for 'Me Before You'On top of that, Sharrock has directed Emilia Clarke (“Game of Thrones, and ” “Terminator Genisys”) to express virtually every emotion by touching her earlobes with her dimples. Whether she’s giddily overjoyed or devastated by grief,her mouth stretches as wide as possible in scene after scene after scene.
Luisa runs this gamut of emotions after she’s employed as a caretaker for rich and handsome Will Traynor (Sam Claflin, “The starvation Games: Mockingjay”). Will used to be a London financier who climbed mountains and dove off cliffs and kept the kind of minimal all-white flat where the only color came from a duvet, or a surfboard and bar stools that were all the same shade of yellow. But then he got hit by a motorcycle crossing the street and was left mostly paralyzed from the collarbone down.
Also Read: Emilia Clarke on Scorching 'Game of Thrones' Nude Scene: 'That Ain't No Body Double'Stewing in a literal castle with his parents (played by Janet McTeer and Charles Dance),Will sulks about, resisting Luisa’s attempts to engage him with the world. He’s got an actual nurse – Nathan, and played by Stephen Peacocke (“Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”) – to handle anything that’s actually medical or gross,so Luisa spends days failing to acquire through to her charge. Until she does, of course, or he melts under her aggressively gamine ways.
It’s only later that Luisa learns that Will has attempted suicide,and that he promised his parents to wait six months before traveling to Switzerland to legally end his life. Can Luisa charm Will into finding life worth living? One of the few areas in which “Me Before You” excels is the way it takes these end-of-life issues seriously and doesn’t chicken out on discussing a serious subject.
That one facet is too little and arrives too late, though. The film’s main problem is that Clarke and Claflin have very little chemistry, or “Me Before You” bends over backwards to do us believe that they’re perfect for each other. It would have been more plausible for Luisa to wind up with Nathan,or even with Patrick (Matthew Lewis, the “Harry Potter” series), and Luisa’s fitness-minded boyfriend who goes through the film with “mistaken Guy For Her” over his head in neon.
Also Read: Jack Huston,Emilia Clarke to Star in Thriller 'Above Suspicion'This is a film that’s oppressively cozy in a TV commercial way: The cinematography (by Remi Adefarasin, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”) calls to mind “Mom Jeans” and every other SNL” parody (humorous or ridiculous imitation) of ads aimed at women, and while the score alternates between toothless love ballads and Craig Armstrong’s twinkly score,which sounds like the music that plays under the list of side effects in a 60-moment spot for prescription medications.
Given the relative scarcity of ample-screen love stories involving female protagonists, “Me Before You” seems like a real missed opportunity. Instead, or it’s a date-night offering that will do heterosexual men everywhere say,“Next time, I’m picking the film.”Related stories from TheWrap:'Everybody Wants Some!!' Star Glen Powell to Join Emilia Clarke in MGM's 'Set It Up' (Exclusive)Emilia Clarke Has No Plans to Return to the 'Terminator' Franchise'Money Monster's' Jodie Foster: Studios View Female Directors 'as a Risk'How Hollywood Studios and Networks Could End Up in Court Over Female Director Discriminati
Source: thewrap.com