The way I see it, there are two types of romance films: those that appeal to women–which typically comes with frequent moments that make the women giggle and leave the men puzzled as to why they’re giggling–and those that are made to appeal to both demographics. The earlier would be movies like Bridget Jones’s Diary or Austenland, while the latter would be movies like Love Actually or About Time. Fortunately, Me Before You is one of the latter. Not only is it made to appeal to all audiences, but it does a wonderful and rare job of knocking it out of the park.
Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke made the transition to the big screen last summer as Sarah Conner in Terminator Genisys, in which she played a similarly strong character to that of her role Thrones. In Me Before You, she makes the move to romantic lead – and she does so quite well! Clarke plays Louisa “Lou” Clark, a 26-year-old young woman who dedicates everything to her family and her boyfriend. Because her dad has been unemployed for years, she’s the sole provider for her family’s household. Her boyfriend (Matthew Lewis, Neville in the Harry Potter films), a personal trainer, is huge into fitness and almost exclusively focuses his time on exercise and new personal records. Because Lou is easy to please others, she purely dedicates her time to the wants and needs of others and doesn’t even notice her lack of self-fulfillment.
The film opens with Lou performing wonderfully at her bakery job. She’s a star employee, but with business down, the store closes its doors and leaves her unemployed. With her sister (Jenna Coleman, Doctor Who) leaving for college, the pressure that lies on Lou is immense. Without a formal education or a trade skill set, she’s limited in jobs that she can apply for. When one opens up that shows high pay and no skill requirements, she jumps on it. Being a chatty charmer, she immediately lands the position without knowing what the job is. She quickly learns that her sole responsibility is to be a 9-to-5 friend with once-successful businessman and local tycoon Will Traynor (Sam Caflin, The Hunger Games series). As her delightful personality meets his depressed pessimism and unhappiness, they begin to rub off on one another: her naivete turns into realistic optimist as she learns to apply her happiness to real-world situations, while he’s able to find joy and happiness in his tragic situation.
I know what you’re thinking: This sounds like just another painful Nicholas Sparks movie. Right? Well, I have some surprising good news – it’s not! It’s so much better than that.
There’s one aspect of the writing and structure of Me Before You that makes it excel far above the romantic genre norm: it’s all about the characters. Lou and Will are far from being the flat and typical leads. The entire film is dedicated to exploring their personalities and perspectives, which is delightfully impressive considering how bad the genre has been over the last several years. A small-yet-consequential story strings their characters along through the evenly-paced 110 minute film, but it’s supremely about them – not a series of predictable cliches. This take on romance is one that I hope sticks. Other studios, writers and filmmakers could benefit from what Me Before You accomplishes.
Male or female, fan of chick flicks or not, I highly recommend giving Me Before You a shot. Just as I was, I’m certain that you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
