'Me Before You': 'Game of Thrones' badass gets sappy
They handed out packs of tissues at the promotional screening of Me Before You the other night, expecting the audience to blubber uncontrollably over the adaptation of Jojo Moyes' tearjerker of a best-seller.
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They handed out packs of tissues at the promotional screening of
Me Before You
the other night, expecting the audience to blubber uncontrollably over the adaptation of Jojo Moyes' tearjerker of a best-seller.
But really, the tissues were more useful for folks with bad spring allergies. The movie's bubbly heroine, the British twenty-something Louisa "Lou" Clark (Emilia Clarke), looks like a walking (or skipping, actually) pollen bomb.
With her caterpillar eyebrows, her butterfly print skirts, her bumblebee tights (an important motif), her daisy earrings, her fuzzy tops, and floral-themed shoes, just one glimpse is enough to start a serious sneeze attack.
It's a wonder that Will Traynor (Sam Claflin) - the handsome and understandably depressed gentleman whom Louisa is hired to attend to - doesn't just go "achoo" and be done with her.
The victim of a traffic accident that left him a quadriplegic, Will now lives in a wing of the family castle, scaring away prospective caregivers with a scowl and a My Left Foot yowl. Louisa, who hails from the nearby village and who has just lost her waitress job, can't afford to quit this new post, even though, at first, she'd very much like to.
Not even a rude, dismissive former financial-world wizard and extreme sports buff now relegated to a wheelchair - and to a future of spasms, nerve pain, infections, and muscular atrophy - can withstand the irradiated optimism of Miss Clark.
As readers of Moyes' romance already know (it's No. 1 on the New York Times list this week) - and as anyone with more than a passing knowledge of Hollywood's sappier tropes might suspect - Will is going to fall for Lou, and Lou is going to fall for Will, too.
Shameless in every way imaginable, Me Before You milks the pathos for all it's worth, but milks the comedy, too. As played by Clarke, minus the blond Pre-Raphaelite tresses and pet dragons she sports as Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, Lou is innately funny. She's unembarrassed to admit that she's never watched a movie with subtitles, or been to a Mozart concert, and she wins Will over by just blurting out what's on her mind.
Will's watchful, well-to-do mother (Janet McTeer) is won over, too, hoping against hope that Lou can make her son want to live again.
As for Will, Claflin - familiar to Hunger Games aficionados as Finnick Odair - deploys the humorously haughty phrasing and piercing pretty-boy gaze of a previous generation's olde English charmboy, Hugh Grant.
Author Moyes tackled the screenplay herself, and London theater veteran Thea Sharrock makes her feature-directing debut, letting the montages and the drippy pop songs fly.
Rounding out the cast are Downton Abbey's Brendan Coyle as Lou's long-unemployed dad, Samantha Spiro as her mum, Jenna Coleman as Lou's perky sister and confidante, Matthew Lewis as Lou's clownish beau, Stephen Peacocke as Will's stolid physical therapist, and Charles Dance as Will's rich and somewhat remote father.
There are trips to the racetrack and to a fancy island resort. And there are life lessons, too.
Live boldly. Push yourself. Wear stripy tights.
215-854-5629 @Steven_Rea
MOVIE REVIEW
Me Before You
ss1/2 (Out of four stars)
yDirected by Thea Sharrock. With Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Janet McTeer, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, and Brendan Coyle. Distributed by Warner Bros.
yRunning time: 1 hour, 50 mins.
yParent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes).
yPlaying at: Area theaters.EndText