movie review me before you

Me Before You

In this romantic drama, based on a best-seller by a female author that has been devoured by hordes of female readers, a filthy-rich 30-ish man who has shut down his emotions forms a relationship with a fetchingly unsophisticated, younger woman of modest means who is willing to tend to his needs. What starts off as strictly a business proposition eventually grows into a more personal and cozier connection.

Quick, name the movie.

You and your dirty mind are probably thinking “ Fifty Shades of Grey ,” right? Now think again and replace the explicit kink with lovey-dovey canoodling and all that bondage gear with a wheelchair. What you have is “Me Before You,” an exercise not in S&M marathons but an almost completely chaste wallow in sob cinema, the Hollywood prototype of which is “ Love Story .”

Luckily, many of the plot’s maudlin pitfalls are greatly mitigated by the film’s utterly infectious leading lady. Emilia Clarke ’s performance is winningly immersed in charming gawkiness and heartfelt sincerity while sporting a deliriously kitschy wardrobe heavy on eye-popping primary colors and loud butterfly prints. So much so, it might put you in mind of when you first witnessed the blinding incandescence of Julia Roberts’ widescreen-ready smile or the delicate allure of Keira Knightley ’s cameo-locket features. 

Of course, “Game of Thrones” devotees have long been bowing down before this British actress and her impressive display of bewitching bad-assery as the silver-haired dragon-keeper Daenerys Targaryen. But she hasn’t quite broken through on the big screen yet. Instead, she proved all too capable of being as forgettable as anything else in last summer’s “ Terminator Genisys ” as the young Sarah Connor.

But only those who are allergic to adorable clumsiness and dewy-eyed sincerity will be able to resist Clarke as Louisa, a sheltered small-town girl with a big personality, too few ambitions and deep concerns for her family’s economic welfare. She even has a unique secret weapon: A set of incredible dancing eyebrows that appear to be under the spell of a snake charmer.

We all should be thankful—save, perhaps, those who voted her  Esquire ’s Sexiest Woman Alive last year—that Clarke turned down starring in “Fifty Shades of Grey” (too much nudity) and waited for this opportunity. To be fair, there of echoes of many other more edifying sources—“An Affair to Remember,” “ Pretty Woman ,” the French import “ The Intouchables ”—that reverberate through this “ Beauty and the Beast ” fantasy as it unfolds in a quaint English village. That the struggling working-class town’s picturesque views are dominated by a massive castle further enhance the sense that this is a contemporary fairy tale.

Ensconced in said fortress in his own stylish yet sterile bachelor pad cocoon is 30-ish Will Traynor, who once was a dashing financial whiz, devotee of extreme sports and bon vivant lover of ravishing women before he was left a quadriplegic two years earlier after a traffic accident. As played by Sam Claflin (Finnick Odair in “ The Hunger Games ” franchise), Will is initially toxic, filled with resentfulness and bitterness over losing his once-wonderful life. He also struggles with chronic pain and finds little joy in existing anymore. That begins to slowly—very slowly—change once lovely Lou enters his world, after being hired by his concerned mother ( Janet McTeer of “ Albert Nobbs ,” adding what layers she can to an underdone part) and father (played by a Charles Dance , a few degrees warmer than usual).

Lou is supposedly a caretaker, although she soon discovers that there is an affable male nurse about to handle the more medical-related and personal hygiene concerns. Instead, she is intended to be a ray of sunshine to dispel the storm clouds that lend to their son’s sagging spirits and boost his desire to live. With a considerable arsenal of withering sarcastic retorts at his surly disposal, Will puts up quite a defense. But one rainy day, he decides to watch a French DVD—“ Of Gods and Men ,” about Trappist monks living in war-torn Algeria—and the ice between him and Lou begins to melt after he learns she has never seen a subtitled movie before.

There are some roadblocks that aren’t as easy to overcome—such as Lou’s clearly incompatible long-distance-runner beau and the fact that Will learns his pre-accident girlfriend is engaged to marry one of his best friends. Then a rather dire agenda of Will’s is revealed, one that will not be exposed here though it is unfortunately treated with all the ham-fisted tentativeness of the worst of those Nicholas Sparks adaptations. This causes Lou to double down on making Will happy by taking him to Mozart concerts, heading to the racetrack and going on a swoony trip to Mallorca. Do they fall for each other? Mais oui .

But weep porn does what weep porn must, even though—unlike my excessive waterworks during “The Fault in Our Stars”—I found no need to dip into the promo Kleenex handed out at my screening. First-time filmmaker Thea Sharrock does an able job keeping us invested in her two main characters while punching up their emotions with Ed Sheeran and Imagine Dragons on the soundtrack and serving up some tasty supporting characters such as Brendan Coyle of “Downton Abbey” fame as Lou’s dad and Joanna Lumley of “Absolutely Fabulous” acclaim as an uncensored wedding guest.

But given that the film’s catchphrase is “Live boldly!,” it’s a shame that “Me Before You” didn’t take a bolder and more honest route in its adaptation of the novel by Jojo Moyes , who also wrote the screenplay. Still, if this flick helps Clarke get ahead in the movie biz, it has done at least one thing right.  

Susan Wloszczyna

Susan Wloszczyna spent much of her nearly thirty years at USA TODAY as a senior entertainment reporter. Now unchained from the grind of daily journalism, she is ready to view the world of movies with fresh eyes.

• Charles Dance as Steven Traynor
• Sam Claflin as William "Will" Traynor
• Emilia Clarke as Louisa "Lou" Clark
• Janet McTeer as Camilla Traynor
• Vanessa Kirby as Alicia
• Craig Armstrong
• John Wilson

Writer (novel)

Cinematographer.

• Remi Adefarasin
• Thea Sharrock

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Review: ‘Me Before You’ Is a Refreshingly Honest Tearjerker

David ehrlich.

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“ Me Before You ” is such a wonderfully uncynical movie that it almost doesn’t matter that it isn’t very good. Adapted by Jojo Moyes from her beloved 2012 novel of the same name, this industrial-strength tear-jerker has all the subtlety of being hit by a runaway motorcycle, but it’s amazing how even the most strained of love stories can be completely revitalized by a palpable human touch. This may look like a Nicolas Sparks knockoff, but the difference between “A Walk to Remember” and “Me Before You” is the difference between “2001” and “Chappie.”

Louisa Clark (“Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke , hardly recognizable without her dragons) is a spirited 26-year-old from a struggling middle-class family. Essentially a live-action Disney princess, Lou dresses as though she’s channeled all of the excitement that’s missing from her life into her eccentric wardrobe, and she wears her emotions so broadly on her face that she might as well be a human emoji. Alas, this bubbly creature is a bit down in the dumps — the bakery where she works has been forced to lay her off, and Lou is growing convinced that her potential is as dim as her job prospects. She’s lost sight of what the world has to offer her, and what she might have to offer the world in return.

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Desperate for work, Lou interviews to be a caregiver for Will Traynor, the newly quadriplegic hunk who lives with his family in the massive castle at the center of town. Showing up to the audition in an ’80s-era power-suit that splits down the thigh as soon as she meets Will’s severe mother (Janet McTeer), Lou couldn’t be more clearly unqualified to care for another human being. She’s hired on the spot.

READ MORE: “Me Before You” Director Thea Sharrock Discusses Bringing the Book to the Screen

As per the grand tradition of thinly veiled “Beauty and the Beast” knockoffs, Will is a miserable ass until the new woman in his life finds a way to pierce his icy veneer. Embodied with terrific pompousness by “Hunger Games” star Sam Claflin , the actor uses his high cheekbones and peevish eyes to convey everything about the man Will was before the runaway motorcycle accident that crippled him (Claflin reportedly lost a bunch of weight for the role, but even bound to his motorized wheelchair it’s clear that he’s still a strapping physical specimen).

She’s poor and provincial, but she has the world at her feet. He’s rich and experienced, but has no feeling in his legs. Lou and Will inevitably fall in love and begin to see life anew through the joy they give one another, but there’s one snag that keeps the romance anchored to the ground: Will wants to kill himself.

Directed with rare intimacy by theater veteran Thea Sharrock (she oversaw the recent revival of “Equus,” fronted by Daniel Radcliffe), “Me Before You” bends some of its genre’s most tiresome tropes into a love story that hits with the blunt impact of a broken heart. This is a glossy melodrama fit for the multiplexes (Remi Adefarasin’s sparkling cinematography allows the movie to double as a feature-length ad for Wales), but it hits a nerve because Moyes’ story never betrays its characters or what they want from the world, and because the sweetness of its candied telling doesn’t overwhelm the  truths at its core.

Clichés abound: Of course Lou has a boyfriend (Matthew Lewis, who seems to have been injected by the Captain America serum since his days as Neville Longbottom), and of course he’s such a complete dolt that no one will judge Lou for ditching him at the end of the second act. In fact, for a film about such an unfortunate predicament, much of the messiness is swept under the rug.

Lou never has to confront the ugly physical realities of caring for a severely impaired person, as Will has a kind aide (Aussie actor Stephen Peacoke) who takes care of all the dirty work. As narratively convenient as that may be, it’s also a reasonable setup for a super-rich man who needs round-the-clock assistance. Moyes and Sharrock, however, have no such excuse when it comes to why their film elides so many of its most traumatic moments.

“Me Before You” isn’t “Amour,” nor does it have to be, but the blunt emotional honesty of its story is only sustained by circumventing so many of the tragic details that might have galvanized Will’s dire situation. “Me Before You” wants you to cry, but it doesn’t want you to suffer. It’s a difficult needle to thread — to quote the Ed Sheeran song that inevitably plays over the climactic moments: “Loving can hurt. Loving can hurt sometimes” — and one that the film negotiates by coating its unflinchingly frank melodrama with a thick layer of Hollywood shine.

But the human element shines through, thanks in large part to Sharrock’s flair for intimacy — most of the movie is set in the excited air between Clark and Claflin’s faces — and the sincerity of her film’s supporting characters, the boyfriend notwithstanding. In most versions of this story, Will’s parents would be borderline monsters who felt as though their son had failed them, and the fact that his father is played by Charles Dance (whose characters typically range from “evil” to “the most evil”) braces you to assume the worst. But while the Traynors have their understandable share of disappointments, their love for Will is every bit as palpable as their diminished hopes for his future.

It also helps that Lou thaws into less of a cartoon as “Me Before You” begins to flip the script on most popcorn melodramas — here, the manic pixie dream girl is the one who’s lost the swing in her step, and the man she’s been sent to fix is literally broken beyond repair. “I can make you happy,” Lou pleads to Will, but she may not be able to make him whole. This is a Movie with a capital “M,” but it’s the rare romance that becomes more beautiful by virtue of how it recognizes that even true love has its limits.

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‘me before you’: film review.

Cinderella story meets end-of-life dialectic in a romance starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin and based on Jojo Moyes' popular novel.

By Sheri Linden

Sheri Linden

Senior Copy Editor/Film Critic

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A bubbly, broody love triangle in which death is the third party, Me Before You stars Game of Thrones ’ Emilia Clarke as the caregiver of a quadriplegic, portrayed by  The Hunger Games’  Sam Claflin . Brought together by need — hers for a job, his for a friend — they’re chalk and cheese, and therefore, by the rules of the movie-romance game, meant for each other. There’s no question that Jojo Moyes’ adaptation of her popular novel, directed by Thea Sharrock , has more on its mind than such storytelling conventions. But far too much of this high-gloss tearjerker proceeds as a by-the-numbers romantic fantasy, nudging the viewer every step of the way.

The chemistry between the leads and a few finely etched supporting turns provide welcome counterweight to the movie’s formulaic progression, welcome especially for those who have seen their fair share of entries in the love-story-with-medical-complication subgenre . Those who haven’t — teens and young adults — will most appreciate the feature, but all-ages fans of the book and of cryfests like The Fault in Our Stars (whose screenwriters had at one point been tapped for the adaptation) will be eagerly getting out their handkerchiefs.

Release date: Jun 03, 2016

At the big-screen helm for the first time, stage wunderkind Sharrock takes a straightforward approach, relying on such familiar tools of the trade as the pop-song-backed montage and ping-pong cross-cutting in conversations. She reserves the film’s visual flourishes for its design elements and settings, and the drama opens with one of its most striking images: two lovers in a bed so white and fluffy it might be a cloud, or a romance novel cover. Dashing go-getter Will Traynor ( Claflin ), waking in his London dream pad beside his girlfriend (Vanessa Kirby), is starting another glamorous day.

The opening section sets up the yin-yang between thirtysomething Will and 26-year-old Louisa “Lou” Clark (Clarke) with admirable economy. In contrast to his moneyed joie de vivre , she still lives in the cramped home of her parents (Brendan Coyle and Samantha Spiro ) and, like many women in screen romances, has a boyfriend (Matthew Lewis) who’s cartoonishly wrong for her. Lou’s explosively colorful girlie getups announce her quirky vivacity — costume designer Jill Taylor has a field day with fuzzy sweaters and polka-dot shoes — but any ambitions attached to that creativity have fizzled.

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When Lou and Will meet, he’s almost completely paralyzed, two years after an accident cut short his seemingly unstoppable upward trajectory. That Will’s stoically suffering mother (Janet McTeer , powerfully understated) hires the inexperienced Lou in the first place is a testament to either the woman’s desperation or her ability to see beyond a nicely played wardrobe malfunction to Lou’s compassion and resilience. With a physical therapist (Stephen Peacocke ) tending to Will’s hygiene, Lou is expected to occupy a different realm of intimacy, as a hired friend of sorts. “You can work out your level of interaction,” his mother tells her. But the movie doesn’t quite allow such leeway for the viewer, instead underlining every exchange and reaction.

In the castle that rises above Lou’s village and is Will’s family home, she becomes an Eliza Doolittle to his princely Henry Higgins. He encourages her to widen her horizons; first step: watching movies with subtitles. The self-actualization goes two ways, with Lou gradually, predictably drawing Will out of the fortress — literal and figurative — where he’s been biding his wheelchair-bound time in sullen despair. Alarmed by the jagged scar on his arm from a botched attempt at self-destruction, Lou determines to make him fall in love with life again and cancel his pending date with assisted suicide in Switzerland.

Cue the string of storybook excursions, both local and far-flung, each one higher on the aphrodisiac meter until the ultimate island getaway ( Mallorca plays Mauritius). With their charm and good looks, Clarke and Claflin give the duo’s sublimated sensuality an undeniable charge, enhanced by the honeyed light of Remi Adefarasin’s camerawork . Clark overdoes Lou’s exuberance, though; whatever emotional complexity and uncertainties the character had on the page get lost amid the performance’s insistent effervescence. And however superbly delivered, Lou’s rant about unhappy marriages indicates a level of understanding that’s at odds with her supposed lack of introspection.

Within the extreme physical constraints of his role, Claflin works a subtler palette, giving Will’s mourning for his former self an affecting depth beyond the screenplay’s all too obvious signposts. Both leads embody the class divide that their characters have crossed, with Andrew McAlpine’s polished production design accentuating the difference between the spirited bustle of Lou’s home life and the quiet anguish of the Traynors’ well-appointed rooms.

The pointedness of the dialogue and direction can, when it isn’t detracting from the story, serve the pared-down supporting roles well, heightening smartly restrained performances that convey whole backstories . That’s the case when Lou’s crucifix-wearing mother reacts to the idea of euthanasia, when her father buoys her with encouraging words and especially in the potent silences between Will’s coexisting parents, played to perfection by McTeer and Charles Dance. A cameo by Joanna Lumley , as a stranger spouting agreeably tart words of wisdom, is entirely unnecessary. But it’s nonetheless a gratifying jolt of Lumley-ness as this villainless fairy tale draws toward its happily mawkish ever after.

Cannes: THR Critics Debate "Rape Comedy," Overlong Movies and Award-Worthy Women

Distributors: Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Production companies: New Line Cinema and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures present a Sunswept Entertainment production Cast: Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin , Janet McTeer , Charles Dance, Brendan Coyle, Stephen Peacocke , Matthew Lewis, Jenna Coleman, Samantha Spiro , Vanessa Kirby, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Joanna Lumley Director: Thea Sharrock Screenwriter: Jojo Moyes , based on her novel Producers: Karen Rosenfelt , Alison Owen Executive producers: Sue Baden-Powell Director of photography: Remi Adefarasin Production designer: Andrew McAlpine Costume designer: Jill Taylor Editor: John Wilson Composer: Craig Armstrong Casting: Kate Dowd

Rated PG-13, 110 minutes

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Me Before You Reviews

Ableism as Romance makes disabled partners look like burdens and erasure look like love.

Full Review | Aug 17, 2021

The ultimate treatment of the heart of this story leaves us with a more bitter than sweet taste.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 3, 2021

Sigh. Folks. It's 2016. I mean, seriously. Aren't we past these pathetic stereotypes by now? Can't we move away from these ridiculous disability as tragedy storylines?

Full Review | Original Score: 1.0/4.0 | Sep 1, 2020

It doesn't have anything interesting to say about its themes or characters - they all exist within a generic and simplified love story.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 13, 2020

I didn't get it.

Full Review | May 1, 2020

I didn't approve of it. I think it's a bad message to be sending.

Through sheer force of charm alone, Claflin puts the audience into his moneyed and manicured corner, to wish him whatever happiness he and his chipper miss can muster.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Oct 21, 2019

The necessary dramatic 'crescendo' does not proceed naturally as it should, but in a completely automatic way, following each and every one of established clichés. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 21, 2019

Sure it looks glossy and has pretty people in it but the message is horrible.

Full Review | Original Score: D- | Apr 12, 2019

Unfortunately, a handful of quality performances isn't nearly enough to salvage Me Before You.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 19, 2019

The film unintentionally comes off more cynical than romantic. [Full Review in Spanish]

Full Review | Feb 12, 2019

While I expected too much of Me Before You, I still enjoyed it.

Full Review | Jan 10, 2019

Me Before You is one of the most refreshing romance movies to hit the big screen in a long while.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 9, 2019

Although a stereotypical story with type-cast characters, the subjects depict the human experience and appeal to sympathetic audiences and romantics, its simplicity giving it the ability to connect to audiences on a universal level.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 22, 2018

A film adaptation of a much loved book always comes with great expectations, and Shakespearean director Thea Sharrock did not let us down. This is an excellent maiden effort.

Full Review | Aug 22, 2018

Simply put, this is escapism at its worst. But who cares? Some tear ducts are in need of cleaning, and if it takes a possibly offensive and badly directed melodrama to do the job, then let it do it.

Full Review | May 1, 2018

Leaving aside the complex issue of assisted dying, one of the film's biggest problems is how much Me Before You shields the audience. For a supposed romance, it's surprisingly prudish.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 22, 2018

How awful ... the moment you realize that everything about their relationship -- gooey, romantic junk food that it is -- is merely the lead-up to a much grander emotional manipulation.

Full Review | Mar 6, 2018

You cannot change who people are, but you can accept them for who they are, giving and taking to do everything in your power to make both lives special while they last

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 5, 2017

It is hard to appreciate a narrative that can only skim the surface but then again Emilia and Sam's chemistry makes you buy into their cozy world.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 7, 2017

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Review: In ‘Me Before You,’ a Broken Man Meets a Free Spirit

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By A.O. Scott

• June 2, 2016

A recent screening of “Me Before You” concluded with audible sniffles and even a sob or two. Why not gales of laughter or quiet snores? These are the mysteries that trouble a critic’s uneasy mind. This floppy British romance, directed by Thea Sharrock and adapted by Jojo Moyes from her best-selling novel , sits at the point where tedium, ridiculousness and heartfelt sentiment converge, separated by an all-but-imperceptible distance. You can’t really argue with someone else’s tears. You can, however, find yourself mystified by them.

Which is not to say that there is anything especially hard to figure out about this movie. On the contrary: It makes a virtue of its absolute obviousness. The first time we see Louisa Clark — known as Lou and played by Emilia Clarke — we note her brightly colored tights and surmise that she is a quirky free spirit. And she is! In contrast, Will Traynor ( Sam Claflin ), is imperious and sarcastic, both because he is an aristocrat (in an actual castle) and because an accident has left him mostly paralyzed from the neck down.

Lou, having been laid off from a job dispensing bogus nutritional advice to old ladies at a tea shop, is hired by Will’s mother ( Janet McTeer ) to care for him. “Not the physical stuff,” Lou is assured. Those duties are taken care of by an affable Australian (Stephen Peacocke). Lou’s assignment is to be cheery and pleasant. To keep Will company and interrupt his brooding with chipper chattiness. To annoy him until he falls in love with her.

Movie Review: ‘Me Before You’

The times critic a. o. scott reviews “me before you.”.

His part of the bargain is to soften in her presence and to introduce her to sophisticated pleasures like Mozart and movies with subtitles. Lou already has a boyfriend, a self-centered fitness nut named Patrick (Matthew Lewis), but as soon as you see him, you will know better than to expect a werewolf-versus-vampire rivalry for a young woman’s affections. This is not “ Twilight. ”

But “Me Before You” does live in the same “Twilight”-fan-fiction neighborhood as “ Fifty Shades of Grey ,” though without the spanking or the atrocious dialogue. (Not that the dialogue here is any good. It’s just not especially memorable, one way or the other.) The operative fantasy is of an ingénue who seduces, and is seduced by, a man who is rich, powerful and also helpless, in need of rescuing by the heroine even as she finds herself in his thrall.

The ending of this movie, though, which I suppose I’m honor-bound not to spoil, is another matter altogether. It will be described in some quarters as tragic, but this doesn’t seem quite right. For one thing, there has not been enough genuine dramatic conflict to give sad events the full, cathartic weight of tragedy. For another, the conclusion might not really be sad at all. Lou gets a lot of money and a fresh croissant. So maybe I had it all wrong, and those tears were tears of joy.

“Me Before You” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Discreet discussions of death and sex . Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes.

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• Entertainment
• Review: <i>Me Before You</i> Is a Three-Hankie Dose of Charm and Waterworks

Review: Me Before You Is a Three-Hankie Dose of Charm and Waterworks

S ome tearjerkers are briskly effective at getting the waterworks going, though not in a way that’s lastingly cathartic. Me Before You–adapted by Jojo Moyes from her enormously popular novel and directed by first-timer Thea Sharrock–is that kind of picture, a harmless enough entry in the “adorable mite tames surly masculine beast” romantic-weeper genre, hitting all the right beats with the clink of an expertly struck cowbell.

Game of Thrones’ Emilia Clarke, looking and sounding less like a mother of dragons than the kind of winsome cartoon mouse who uses a polka-dot toadstool for an umbrella, plays Lou, a young Englishwoman who has deferred her dreams of going to college–she needs to work to keep her family afloat. In desperation, she takes a job as caretaker to a man who has recently been paralyzed in an accident. William (The Hunger Games’ Sam Claflin) used to be one of those guys who would “live life to the fullest,” which, in the movie’s terms, means doing manly-man, rich-dude-at-leisure things like performing daredevil waterskiing feats and diving off impossibly high cliffs into the surf below. Now stuck in a wheelchair and essentially a prisoner in the family castle, William is sour and miserable and wishes to die.

Until Lou comes skipping down the lane. At first, William resists her sunny disposition and wardrobe of sweaters adorned with hearts. But her charm assault is formidable, and it’s not long before this former crosspatch is bestowing kooky gifts, like whimsical bumblebee legwear, upon his lady love. In terms of bending men to her will, Lou may not be so far off from Khaleesi after all.

If you can tolerate this much cuteness, Clarke and Claflin may grow on you–their banter becomes less adorably unbearable as the film goes on. And the bittersweet ending of Me Before You may make you cry, even if an hour later you may not remember why. Cheerful and efficient, this is the stripey tights of melodramas.

–S.Z.

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Me Before You

A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man she's taking care of. A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man she's taking care of. A girl in a small town forms an unlikely bond with a recently-paralyzed man she's taking care of.

• Thea Sharrock
• Emilia Clarke
• Sam Claflin
• Janet McTeer
• 629 User reviews
• 233 Critic reviews
• 51 Metascore
• 6 wins & 6 nominations

Top cast 58

• Will Traynor

• Camilla Traynor

• Stephen Traynor

• Café Customer

• Thomas Clark
• (as Henri Kirkham)

• Josie Clark

• Bernard Clark

• Katrina "Treena" Clark

• Freddie Foster
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia In the book, "Me Before You" Lou Clark gets a tattoo of a bumblebee. Emilia Clarke's first tattoo was also a bumblebee on her finger which she got after wrapping the film.
• Goofs When returning from the trip, there's a scene with Lou and Will at a check-in counter at the airport. When flying with a private carrier, you don't go to a check-in counter, just pass through a separate security and ID control, and a private handler takes you to your jet at the apron.

[Last lines]

Will Traynor : [Voice over, narrating the letter Louisa is reading] Clark. A few weeks should have passed by the time you read this. If you follow the instructions, you'll be in Paris on one of those chairs that never sit quite level on a pavement. I hope it's still sunny. Across the bridge to your right, you'll see L'artisan Parfumeur. You should try the scent called Papiomextrem. I always did think it would smell great on you. There are few things I wanted to say and couldn't because you would've gotten emotional and you wouldn't have let me finish. So, here it is. When you get back home, Michael Lawler will give you access to a bank account that contains enough to give you a new beginning. Don't start panicking. It's not enough for you to sit around for the rest of your life but it should buy you your freedom, at least from that little town we both call home. Live boldly, Clark. Push yourself. Don't settle. Wear those stripy legs with pride. Knowing you still have possibilities is a luxury, knowing I might have given them to you. This eased something for me. So, this is it. You are scored on my heart, Clark. You have been the first day you walked in with your sweet smile and your ridiculous clothes and your bad jokes and your complete inability to ever hide a single thing you felt. Don't think of me too often. I don't want you getting sad. Just live well. Just live. I'll be walking beside you every step of the way. Love, Will.

• Connections Featured in Late Night with Seth Meyers: Emilia Clarke/Darrell Hammond/Geoff Johns/Tim Alexander (2016)
• Soundtracks Numb Written by Max Jury & Dean Josiah Performed by Max Jury Courtesy of Marathon Artists Ltd./Kobalt Label Services Ltd.

User reviews 629

Gets me crying everytime.

• anaisverny_ploypailin
• Oct 13, 2018

Everything New on Prime Video in November

• June 3, 2016 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official site
• Yo antes de ti
• Pembroke Castle, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK
• Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• New Line Cinema
• One Film at a Time
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $20,000,000 (estimated)
• $56,245,075
• $18,723,269
• Jun 5, 2016
• $208,445,075

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 50 minutes
• Dolby Digital
• Dolby Atmos

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'Me Before You': EW review

It’s easy to be cold and cynical these days , but we should never lose sight of the simple, cathartic pleasure of a good cry at the movies. Thea Sharrock’s charming new Anglo-weepie, Me Before You , is a perfect case in point. It may not quite rise to the level of a classic three-hankie tearjerker, but it’s proof that sometimes one or two hankies is more than enough to get the job done. Based on a best-selling 2012 novel by Jojo Moyes (she also penned the screenplay), the film will feel familiar to anyone who’s sniffled through Love Story or The Fault in Our Stars . It’s better than both.

Game of Thrones ’ Emilia Clarke stars as Louisa, a bumbling small-town shopgirl who brightens the day of everyone she meets with her bottomless kindness, irrepressible smile, and quirky Pantone-palette wardrobe. She’s like Love Actually -era Keira Knightley crossed with a Hello Kitty doll. When the local bakery she works at shutters, Louisa lands a job as a caretaker to Will, a wealthy young London business hotshot who was paralyzed from the neck down in a traffic accident two years earlier. Since he’s played by Sam Claflin (of The Hunger Games fame), he’s also impossibly good-looking—even if his condition has left him bitterly depressed and cuttingly sarcastic in a wheelchair.

You don’t have to be Kreskin (or Nicholas Sparks, for that matter) to know where this is headed—that these two opposites (he’s a storm cloud, she’s all silver lining) will end up attracting, and that love, at least for a while, will prove stronger than death. But you’ll forgive the movie’s clichés because of its surprisingly winning performances. Clarke may start off as a chipper thrift-store Cinderella and Claflin like a prickly Prince Charming, but as the film goes on and the frost between them melts, both actors give their stock roles unexpected emotional layers. As the saintly Louisa brings Will out of his self-pitying shell by watching foreign films with him, whisking him off to the horse races, and curling up next to him for deep late-night confessionals, Clarke’s sincerity doesn’t just win Will’s heart, it wins ours, too. When she smiles, the whole screen glows.

If all of this seems too good to be true, well, it is. Will has found his adorable savior, but he may not want to be saved. Even with Louisa by his side, he’ll never be the man he was and still wants to be. It’s the closest that Sharrock and Moyes come to deviating from the genre’s formula. But we don’t go to romantic melodramas like this looking for surprises. We want to be resold on the power of love. Me Before You doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. We’ve all seen some version of this movie before, but that doesn’t make it any less effective. It knows what it is and embraces it. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have to go wipe something from my eye. It’s allergies, I swear. B+

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Me Before You : Perfectly Predictable, Winsomely British

Something I asked myself while watching Me Before You , a winning film adaptation of the best-selling tearjerker novel, was a question I should probably ask myself more often: Would I be as charmed by this if they weren’t British?

It’s a hard one to answer definitively, but I suspect there might be something to my theory that, say, the whimsy of Love Actually , or the melancholy of About Time , or indeed the sweet sorrow of Me Before You , wouldn’t be quite as effective if the characters had flat American accents and lived in Cleveland. Which means I, and you, should take the gradually won affection I felt for Me Before You —a true weepy about the enriching, tragic love between a quirky commoner ( Emilia Clarke ) and the dashing, posh fellow ( Sam Claflin ) she goes to work for after an accident puts him in a wheelchair—with a grain of good old American salt.

To be fair to this pleasant and sad little movie, it does possess wit and style that likely transcend any accent. Jojo Moyes adapted her own novel, and though I’m told it excises a rather significant plot point/character detail, the script has a warm, gracious humanity to it. Though they're certainly representative of well-worn types, our young lovers, Will and Lou, actually feel like people, too. The film was directed by Thea Sharrock, a newcomer to film after getting a prodigy-like start in the theater (named artistic director of a major London theater at 24, directed Daniel Radcliffe in the hit Broadway-transferring production of Equus at 31)—and watching the movie, it’s apparent that there’s a thinking person behind the camera. The film, though shot in rich, saturated colors by Remi Adefarasin (he filmed Elizabeth back in 1998), has a nice sense of economy. It’s emotive, but it’s also efficient, telling an inevitable story (Will is prickly and mean at first, but he softens as Lou teaches him to love again while he shows Lou all of her unrealized potential) with a swift, confident freshness. Yes we’ve seen this kind of thing many times already, but Me Before You has makes a gentle case for doing it all over again.

The casting certainly helps. Clarke is obviously best known as the anointed, possibly megalomaniacal dragon queen Daenerys on Game of Thrones , while Claflin is probably most famous for playing trident-wielding sexpot Finnick in the Hunger Games movies. Here we get to see their softer, more sensitive sides, and though both actors have their problems—Claflin’s charm can be a bit mechanical, Clarke has a habit of overplaying her character’s guileless goodness, cutely knitted brows and all—but, boy, do they have chemistry together. Theirs is a dewy, wet-eyed rapport that could easily have been noxious and sugary. Instead, it’s mostly reined in by Sharrock and her actors, just before it crosses that treacly line. (Not always, though. Among other sins committed, in a few instances the film relies on that grotesque movie trope of lovestruck dopes referring to each other by their first and last names. No one does this in real life!) Sharrock also hired a strong coterie of supporting players to round out the film, including the great Janet McTeer and Charles Dance as Will’s caring parents, and promising up-and-comer Vanessa Kirby as an old girlfriend.

But, at the risk of spoiling things, where the movie is at its most impressive and assured is when it’s grappling—in an admirably frank manner for a movie like this—with the topic of assisted suicide. The film approaches this thorny issue with an honorable maturity and forthrightness, even if it’s all given the glowing gloss of an Instagram snap with the filter put up to the hilt. That, to me, represents something intrinsically, crucially British about the film, a pragmatic, a-religious approach that I can’t really imagine a mainstream, commercial American film taking. Though, who knows. The needle on that issue seems to have moved toward a more common acceptance, so maybe I’m once again blinded by my Anglophilia. Whatever it is, I’m glad that Me Before You doesn’t shy away from the difficulty at its center, while still giving us something cozy and romantic—and, in its own weird way, aspirational.

This is all to say, I cried at the end. Which is, of course, the whole point. Sharrack picks the perfect wistful final shot, Craig Armstrong’s score swells with ache and possibility, and everything is bathed in the golden light of bittersweet resolve. It’s potent stuff. I walked out of a screening on a drizzly May afternoon feeling just the right mix of heartened and sad, convinced of life’s fleeting beauty and longing for my own grand love affair. I also wanted to immediately head to the airport and get on a plane bound for England, even if life over there isn’t really as winsome, as warm and clever, as it so often seems up there on the shimmering screen.

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Richard Lawson

Chief critic.