I was perfectly ready to go into Me Before You and burn it to the ground for being trite, sentimental, and at worst a romantic comedy. Not that I have anything against romantic comedies (When Harry Met Sally is a masterpiece), but from the trailer and poster Me Before You looked like it was going to be that cutesy tearjerker, cute font and all, that I was not looking forward too. The snob glasses were on, and then about 30 minutes in the movie called me out on that, and persisted to kick them off and then make me play a game of chicken with myself on whether or not I would actually cry with my girlfriend at the events. That does not mean the this is a great or even good movie. Me Before You is the type of film that dangles at the facet of just likable enough, but also just corny and disposable enough. The likeableness isn’t even the thing that pushes it into the ballpark of high mediocre. The mechanics and performances do that. See, the dialogue here being so cutesy really robs the movie of any sense of tension, but Me Before You is on a serious time limit. It follows Emilia Clarke as Louisa, the caretaker of one Will Trainer, a womanizer who after an accident was made a quadriplegic. If you’ve already guessed that Louisa’s plucky nature is going to start to change Will, and make him start to appreciate life than enjoy that small reward as the film’s story is much more ambitious than just that base. See, Will is in six months going to travel to Switzerland, and end his life, leading to Louisa take all the pluckiness she has and convince him that the world is not so bad. Ok, so there’s a time limit built in so what? Well, that leads to the film’s biggest problem. As likable as the movie is and as good as Clarke is (I’ll get to that in a sec) the time that Emilia spends trying to cheer Will up feels almost like dead air waiting to gain a point. Soon, the chemistry of the two leads takes over and allows this to become serviceable, but weightless wish fulfillment, but that’s all it is. SPOILERS, though, this is all finally given weight when the fact that all was for not and Will still actually wants to die no matter what is revealed. Controversy aside it’s a sly twist to get the audience in a calm and breezy mood and then bring the anvil of reality down on their heads. I was most likely the only dry eye in the theater, and that was only barely. That dead air section of the movie though isn’t intolerable. Emilia Clarke is a truly expressive actress, and the way she uses her face to act is surprising in the age of stoic main characters. Clarke is endlessly cheery and innocent making her extremely loveable. The thematic throughline of the movie almost gets flipped as Will (Sam Claflin also a charm) starts to take the activities that Louisa initially planned to cheer him up, and use them to both distract her and become humbled at his own ability to make her happy and Claflin’s sly note working with Clarke's overbearing joy only serves to blindside the audience more. These two things help to keep Me Before You keep itself above the Nicholas Sparks crowd, but it’s all only covering up the emptiness just better than those movies. Me Before You gets a 6 out of 10.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |