Me Before You

In this rather spritely romance, a young working-class woman named Lou (Emilia Clarke) takes a care-tending job for Will (Sam Claflin), a former Dashing Young Man About Town who is now a quadriplegic. She’s poor, perky and naïve; he’s rich, depressed and cynical. And in Thea Sharrock’s adaptation of Jojo Moyes’ popular novel, this mismatched pair is destined to fall in love. The impediment is Will’s disability, or more correctly, his response to it: Lou learns that Will is planning an assisted suicide, and works with his parents (Janet McTeer, Charles Dance) to prove life is worth living. It’s a darker and complex issue that this largely cheery film has trouble incorporating, and the resolution of the story is problematic for a variety of reasons. There’s much left unexplored, such as class, money, privilege, agency and why Lou dresses like a 4-year-old.