Reviewer: Federica Roberti
It is always a challenge to adapt a novel into a film and lately there has been a lot of unsuccessful movies that didn’t quite get what the book wanted to say. This is not the case for “Me Before You”.
Converted for the big screen by the writer herself, this movie was able to translate all the heartbreaking emotions straight from the book, even though it had to sacrifice some of the minor plot lines in the original story.
The events are mostly narrated through Louisa Clarke’s point of view.
Louisa is not an overachiever, she lives in a small town and just lost her job in the local cafe. While looking for another occupation to help her family out, an opportunity to be a carer falls into her lap.
The job seems right up her alley, she has to look after Will Trainor, a quadriplegic young man who saw is life changed completely after an accident. However, for Louisa things don’t go as smoothly as she would like.
Will, a successful lawyer who had it all in his life, doesn’t accept his faith. Being stuck in a wheelchair wasn’t something he envisioned for himself, especially because he was in love with the idea of enjoying life at its fullest, even a little bit recklessly.
In trying to connect with him and make her days less hard and dark, Louisa will start to get to know the real William, the one before the accident.
That Will, however, is buried deep underneath contempt and darkness. He is now a man ready to give up and let himself go after life just gave him the harshest lesson in its book, never give everything for granted.
Adapted from the acclaimed best seller Me Before You, the movie still gifts the audience with the same powerful emotional roller coaster that someone has while reading the pages of this heartbreaking story.
At first, as it might happen when reading the book, it is really difficult to connect with both Louisa and Will. Both of them, not for Lou’s lack of trying, are emotionally apart. As for the book, in the movie William’s coldness and complete disinterest in life makes the audience feel detached from the story. However, the more Louisa warms up to William the more you get invested in their relationship and in Will’s condition.
Since the script was written by Jojo Moyes, who wrote the book in the first place, the movie doesn’t move too far away from the pages. Some of the secondary plot-lines suffered cuts, necessary for the length of the film. Louisa’s relationship with her family becomes less bitter, but in doing so the story looses how important her relationship with William is to change her life.
Both Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin understood their characters completely. Emilia is wonderful in 
embodying Lou’s quirkiness, resolution and joie de vivre. She thoroughly grasped her strength and stubbornness in showing William why life was worth living.
On his part, Sam Claflin became William in all his aspects. The pungent sarcasm coming from a person that has nothing left to lose, his determination in choosing what to do with his life and his quest to help Lou realise that she is more than everyone else wants her to believe, are portrayed naturally along with showcasing William’s complete lack of body functions.
Along with their truthful performances, another aspect of the film worth mentioning is the cinematography. The camera moves from breathtaking panoramic shots of the British country and the beauty of the island of Mallorca, to close ups of the main characters, to highlight not only the tremendous chemistry between Claflin and Clarke, but also to emphasise Lou’s mission to make William fall in love with life again.
However, what makes this movie really heartbreaking is the way in which the topic of euthanasia is discussed and approached.
Most of the criticism moved to the book, as well as the film, focused on the fact that it seems like the writer wanted to show that life for a quadriplegic can only be miserable and that death is the only way to get out of the trap that the body has become for these people. Unfortunately, they are completely missing the point.
William’s choice reflects his old lifestyle and how adventurous he was. After the incident, he is aware that he doesn’t have any chance of getting back on his feet, and he needs the freedom to be able to still chose and do one last thing for himself. Something that no one else can do for him. Choosing this difficult path is the only way for him to regain control of himself. However, this choice becomes more painful for him because of Lou. He sees himself as another obstacle that will separate her from her greatness, so, even though in Louisa’s eyes he is giving up on their love and a chance to have a life together, to Will he is just making the ultimate sacrifice to set her free.
In the film this theme is not analysed superficially, on the contrary, all the persons affected by William’s choice have their chance to show how they are processing the news in their own way.
All in all, Me before You it’s a movie that, in telling the story of a man ready to give up and a woman willing to fight for him, it is actually reminding everyone how important it is to enjoy life at its fullest without regrets.
