Me Before You: The Real Problem

Director Thea Sharrock
Staring Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Janet McTeer
Rated PG
Score 3/6

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

Before I start a small message to the disciples of the Marvel Cinematic Universe who have metaphorically castrated a cavalcade of directors over the past 16 years and to anybody who believes ‘he ruined my childhood’ is on the charge sheet for the cinematic crimes committed by George Lucas. The difference between tea cup storms of controversy that you have created and the controversy surrounding Me Before You is essentially the difference between childhood and adulthood.

Now I probably would stay on my high horse and continue writing my review if Me Before You wasn’t such a sugar cookie of a movie because now I have to turn my attention to the disability advocates who created this storm. I ask those advocates to caste their minds back two years to the freedom of speech controversy that surrounded the movie The Interview that was directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen and strongly suggest that next time you choose your battles a little more wisely. This is not because Me Before You is a bad movie like The Interview is, director Thea Sharrock did her job and stayed faithful to the novel (this was easy because the author of the novel Jojo Moyes also wrote the screenplay) and the suicide was dealt tastefully, with dignity and I really don’t see what the big deal was because Me Before You is the type of movie that needs to be held in the same cinematic esteem as all 11 movies that have been adapted from Nicholas Sparks movies are. I will admit that there is probably 30 seconds at the start of the movie that could possibly be considered to be close to being dark possibly the only dark moment of the entire movie. There was some brilliant casting decisions like Jenna Coleman, Mathew Lewis, Joanna Lumley and Stephen Peacocke by way of the Australia’s Home and Away Academy of Dramatic Arts.