Content material warning: This text discusses themes and material that some readers could discover triggering, together with physician-assisted suicide.
Within the midst of her tenure as Daenerys Targaryen on “Recreation of Thrones,” Emilia Clarke discovered the time to shoot a heartfelt, weepy romance film … and years later, it is discovering new life on Amazon Prime’s streaming service. So what is the film?
Launched in 2016, “Me Earlier than You” — primarily based on the best-selling novel of the identical identify by Jojo Moyes, which got here out 4 years prior — tells the story of Louisa “Lou” Clark (Clarke), a bubbly however unmotivated younger lady who finally ends up working as an in-home carer for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), who led a particularly lively life as a banker and athlete earlier than stepping into a motorbike accident. Will deeply struggles along with his new life as a tetraplegic (that means that he has a devastating spinal wire damage that impacts his skill to maneuver his legs and arms) and, frankly, has a extremely tough angle about how his entire world has modified, however Lou’s irrepressible spirit and daring nature unexpectedly charms him, serving to him reside life extra absolutely.
Sadly, earlier than Lou enters Will’s life, he makes the choice to finish his life at a clinic in Switzerland that allows physician-assisted suicide. As a lot as Lou tries to persuade Is not going to to pursue that path, he in the end does. Lou spends the final moments of Will’s life by his facet, and after his demise, it is revealed that he left her a big sum of money to encourage her to reside her life to the fullest — one thing she reads in a letter Will left along with his final will and testomony whereas she sits in his very favourite café in Paris.
The film is a tearjerker, to make certain — however apparently, folks on Amazon Prime are embracing it. So what did critics should say about “Me Earlier than You” when it was first launched?
Critics — and the disabled neighborhood — truly did not assume a lot of Me Earlier than You
Earlier than addressing the important response to “Me Earlier than You,” it is very vital to notice that the movie made waves within the disabled neighborhood — and not in a great way. Many incapacity advocates understandably felt as if the movie’s message is that life with a incapacity isn’t any life in any respect, which is definitely not true, and the Rotten Tomatoes important consensus displays it, studying, “‘Me Earlier than You’ advantages from Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin’s alluring chemistry, though it is not sufficient to compensate for its clumsy therapy of a delicate topic.” With a median ranking of 54%, which is formally “rotten,” what did particular person critics should say on the matter?
Roxana Hadidi, writing for Punch Drunk Critics on the time, obtained proper to the center of the matter: “Strong performances do not stability out the problematic elements of ‘Me Earlier than You,’ that are many.” Of their overview for Vox, Aja Romano expressed an identical sentiment, writing, “In different phrases, in the event you’ve ever wished your romance with a facet of incapacity and continual ache, ‘Me Earlier than You’ is ideal for you — so long as you do not truly need a sensible depiction of any of these issues.” In the meantime, in New York Journal, David Edelstein was harsh about each the ebook and the movie, quipping, “Followers of the best-selling novel by Jojo Moyes can be heartened to listen to that she wrote the screenplay, too, and that she has preserved all of the traces that — when learn aloud — will present a lot mirth at your subsequent feast.” Only for some stability, although, David Ehrlich at IndieWire fairly preferred it, saying “Me Earlier than You” is “such a splendidly uncynical film that it virtually would not matter that it’s not superb.”
What have Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin completed since Me Earlier than You?
The underside line is that, although “Me Earlier than You” was a serious important misfire, each Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin went on to greater and higher tasks. Clearly, Clarke continued taking part in Daenerys Targaryen on the HBO juggernaut “Recreation of Thrones” till the present got here to an finish in 2019, though that additionally stirred up loads of controversy (largely as a result of the ultimate episode was, uh, not superb). After her time as Daenerys, Clarke took on one other weepy love story — the 2019 movie “Final Christmas” with Henry Golding and Emma Thompson — lent her voice to the 2022 movie “The Wonderful Maurice,” and appeared in a romantic comedy with a sci-fi twist referred to as “The Pod Technology,” which launched in 2023. That very same 12 months, she formally joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as G’iah within the Disney+ unique collection “Secret Invasion.”
As for Claflin, he earned fame and popularity of his function as Finnick Odair within the “Starvation Video games” movies earlier than “Me Earlier than You,” and after taking part in Will Traynor, he joined the forged of the Irish-set drama “Peaky Blinders.” It’s also possible to catch Claflin within the 2020 Netflix unique “Enola Holmes” — the place he performs Mycroft Holmes alongside Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill as Enola and Sherlock, respectively — and, most not too long ago, Claflin acquired rave opinions for his lead function because the troubled (and fictional) rock star Billy Dunne in “Daisy Jones & the Six.” If you happen to’re inquisitive about “Me Earlier than You,” it is obtainable to stream on Amazon Prime now.
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