SPOILER-FREE MOVIE REVIEW
Me Before You is a romantic drama adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Jojo Moyes (who also wrote the screenplay for the film).
It stars Game of Thrones' very beautiful Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, who's probably best known for his role as Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games series.
Now, I'd like to take you folks back to two years ago when The Fault In Our Stars was released in theatres.
That movie was a resounding success. Why? Not just because of the popularity of the book, but because of its subject matter - love and tragedy.
With Me Before You, it seems that the filmmakers decided to bank on this formula in the hopes of making a romance movie similar in style and topic as TFIOS.
Was the effect as successful, though? I'd say this movie splits opinions.
Now personally, I am a complete sucker for romance movies. My favourite romance film of all-time is Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011), and I also really like movies like Love Actually (2003), Notting Hill (1999), Pretty Woman (1990) and You've Got Mail (1998), just to name a few.
But for the sake of fairness, I will stay completely neutral in this review as I should for all movies I talk about. (I secretly like this movie very much)
Me Before You deals with the character of Will Traynor (Claflin) who has everything going for him in his life until one day, he becomes a quadriplegic (a form of paralysis) after being knocked down by a motorcycle.
It shows his struggle in accepting the circumstances, and along the way he meets unemployed and madly optimistic Louisa Clark (Clarke), who applies for a job as Traynor's caretaker.
And now, we have a movie.
I'm gonna start by saying that I am very impressed with Sam Claflin as Will Traynor in this movie.
Although I've not seen much of Sam Claflin other than in The Hunger Games movies (he so happens to be my favourite character of the whole film series), but I do like him as an actor and I think he's a really good-looking chap and since he's British, he's an immediate candidate to be the next James Bond.
Anyway, I am sidetracking.
Acting on its own is already no easy feat but acting as a paralysed man from the neck-down with only his facial expressions and tone of voice for the actor to utilise? That is impressive.
He managed to convey the struggle the character was facing in not being able to do what he once could. I also really liked how sarcastic and mean he was to all those around him. It spoke volumes of the character and what he was facing so kudos to Sam Claflin for that.
I also loved the character of Louisa Clark, whose never-say-die attitude was so contagious and nice to see.
I think it was great casting too in getting Emilia Clarke to play the part, as she has such a gorgeous smile and probably the most expressive pair of eyebrows I have ever seen.
The chemistry the two shared was just electric. There's no undermining it.
From lovey-dovey scenes to heated arguments, from Will being a total arse to Louisa to the pair finally opening up, it was a joy to see the two on-screen together - and they're pretty much the best part of the entire film.
I also liked how pretty much the whole cast is British and how the film is set in the UK. I don't know, there's just something about films based in England which similar movies made in America can never have.
As for the supporting cast, well, they were pretty insignificant apart from a couple of them no thanks to the two leads sharing such great chemistry.
I did like the character of Nathan (Steve Peacocke) who was Will's personal doctor. It's nice to have an Australian actor acting as an Australian character and not imitating an American accent.
The character I didn't like was Louisa's self-obsessed and narcissistic boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis) who was so annoying and so obviously written to be the reason why Louisa is not happy in the relationship.
It would have been nicer if perhaps they had fleshed out his character more to establish his poor character traits instead of just vomiting them all out with the character when we first see him. I think Patrick's the weakest and most poorly-written character of the whole film.
The story is pretty generic as we've seen it many times before.
Although the tragedy aspect of it was a nice change to the typical formula, it could have been explored much better as the manner in which it concludes was rather abrupt and out-of-nowhere.
Other than that, the only differences between this and The Fault In Our Stars was in Louisa Clark's absurdly adorable sense of fashion. I mean, just look at those bumblebee tights! Her dress sense was so cute.
And for the music, well, a romance movie paired with an Ed Sheeran song is always a sure-win.
In this movie, they used Thinking Out Loud and Photograph - both to great effect as they were utilised in some very emotional scenes.
I won't deny that I did shed a tear or five throughout the course of the 110-minute runtime. However, it's not a weep-fest like TFIOS was. Jeez, I cried bucketloads at my first viewing of that.
On a technical level, I felt the film could have been edited a bit better as there were a handful of odd cuts here and there.
However, it was directed fairly well, and the camera work and cinematography were all lovely.
All in all, Me Before You was that typical holiday-time romance movie which comes out every year.
Does it offer enough to differentiate itself from the rest? Well, to a certain extent, it does. To the vast majority, though, it seems like it gets a resounding 'no'.
I, however, did enjoy it. It's a good movie, just not fantastic or groundbreaking.
Whatever you do, though, don't be like me and watch it alone. You will feel so very lonely especially with couples all around you, and when you get hit by the feels and you have no one by your side to cuddle with.
6.5/10.
It stars Game of Thrones' very beautiful Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin, who's probably best known for his role as Finnick Odair in The Hunger Games series.
Now, I'd like to take you folks back to two years ago when The Fault In Our Stars was released in theatres.
That movie was a resounding success. Why? Not just because of the popularity of the book, but because of its subject matter - love and tragedy.
With Me Before You, it seems that the filmmakers decided to bank on this formula in the hopes of making a romance movie similar in style and topic as TFIOS.
Was the effect as successful, though? I'd say this movie splits opinions.
Now personally, I am a complete sucker for romance movies. My favourite romance film of all-time is Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011), and I also really like movies like Love Actually (2003), Notting Hill (1999), Pretty Woman (1990) and You've Got Mail (1998), just to name a few.
But for the sake of fairness, I will stay completely neutral in this review as I should for all movies I talk about. (I secretly like this movie very much)
Me Before You deals with the character of Will Traynor (Claflin) who has everything going for him in his life until one day, he becomes a quadriplegic (a form of paralysis) after being knocked down by a motorcycle.
It shows his struggle in accepting the circumstances, and along the way he meets unemployed and madly optimistic Louisa Clark (Clarke), who applies for a job as Traynor's caretaker.
And now, we have a movie.
I'm gonna start by saying that I am very impressed with Sam Claflin as Will Traynor in this movie.
Although I've not seen much of Sam Claflin other than in The Hunger Games movies (he so happens to be my favourite character of the whole film series), but I do like him as an actor and I think he's a really good-looking chap and since he's British, he's an immediate candidate to be the next James Bond.
Anyway, I am sidetracking.
Acting on its own is already no easy feat but acting as a paralysed man from the neck-down with only his facial expressions and tone of voice for the actor to utilise? That is impressive.
He managed to convey the struggle the character was facing in not being able to do what he once could. I also really liked how sarcastic and mean he was to all those around him. It spoke volumes of the character and what he was facing so kudos to Sam Claflin for that.
I also loved the character of Louisa Clark, whose never-say-die attitude was so contagious and nice to see.
I think it was great casting too in getting Emilia Clarke to play the part, as she has such a gorgeous smile and probably the most expressive pair of eyebrows I have ever seen.
The chemistry the two shared was just electric. There's no undermining it.
From lovey-dovey scenes to heated arguments, from Will being a total arse to Louisa to the pair finally opening up, it was a joy to see the two on-screen together - and they're pretty much the best part of the entire film.
I also liked how pretty much the whole cast is British and how the film is set in the UK. I don't know, there's just something about films based in England which similar movies made in America can never have.
As for the supporting cast, well, they were pretty insignificant apart from a couple of them no thanks to the two leads sharing such great chemistry.
I did like the character of Nathan (Steve Peacocke) who was Will's personal doctor. It's nice to have an Australian actor acting as an Australian character and not imitating an American accent.
The character I didn't like was Louisa's self-obsessed and narcissistic boyfriend Patrick (Matthew Lewis) who was so annoying and so obviously written to be the reason why Louisa is not happy in the relationship.
It would have been nicer if perhaps they had fleshed out his character more to establish his poor character traits instead of just vomiting them all out with the character when we first see him. I think Patrick's the weakest and most poorly-written character of the whole film.
The story is pretty generic as we've seen it many times before.
Although the tragedy aspect of it was a nice change to the typical formula, it could have been explored much better as the manner in which it concludes was rather abrupt and out-of-nowhere.
Other than that, the only differences between this and The Fault In Our Stars was in Louisa Clark's absurdly adorable sense of fashion. I mean, just look at those bumblebee tights! Her dress sense was so cute.
And for the music, well, a romance movie paired with an Ed Sheeran song is always a sure-win.
In this movie, they used Thinking Out Loud and Photograph - both to great effect as they were utilised in some very emotional scenes.
I won't deny that I did shed a tear or five throughout the course of the 110-minute runtime. However, it's not a weep-fest like TFIOS was. Jeez, I cried bucketloads at my first viewing of that.
On a technical level, I felt the film could have been edited a bit better as there were a handful of odd cuts here and there.
However, it was directed fairly well, and the camera work and cinematography were all lovely.
All in all, Me Before You was that typical holiday-time romance movie which comes out every year.
Does it offer enough to differentiate itself from the rest? Well, to a certain extent, it does. To the vast majority, though, it seems like it gets a resounding 'no'.
I, however, did enjoy it. It's a good movie, just not fantastic or groundbreaking.
Whatever you do, though, don't be like me and watch it alone. You will feel so very lonely especially with couples all around you, and when you get hit by the feels and you have no one by your side to cuddle with.
6.5/10.
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