Offence by Proxy! It's the game that's sweeping the nation. That said, it would require some fairly perverse thinking not to stand in solidarity with the various disabled rights activists who have rallied against Jojo Moyes's novel Me Before You and this big screen adaptation.
The plot – for those of you who haven't glanced at the blurb on one of the many millions of copies circulating – concerns Will Traynor (played by Sam Claflin) a young millionaire who becomes paralysed after a motorcycle accident. He falls in love with his kooky, pretty caretaker, Lou Clark, as portrayed by Game of Thrones' resident dragon mistress Emilia Clarke. The pretty, kooky girl is his mum's (Janet McTeer) idea, as we soon learn that Will has arranged for his own assisted suicide. Can his new caretaker with eccentric colourful shoes persuade him that disability is better than death? Huh? Really?
It's a thoroughly offensive notion and yet, in the glossy, frothy world of the rom-dram, paraplegia is not impairment: it is merely a plot device. Me Before You has no interest in the realities of life with disability; it is, rather, yet another variant on a threadbare formula.
You know the drill: Quadrillionaire Boy meets Clumsy Girl. Quadrillionaire Boy loves Clumsy Girl and is willing to lavish her with material proofs of his wealth/affection. But Quadrillionaire Boy can't be with Clumsy Girl because he is a vampire (see Edward Cullen in Twilight) or an S&M saddo (see Christian Gray).
At times, the resemblance to the latter is so pronounced that Me Before You might as well have been called 50 Shades of Wheelchair. Claflin's Will jokingly/not jokingly refers to his assistant – she's drawn from the lower orders, you know – as Clark. He teases her for not watching subtitled movies and improves her by, well, making her watch subtitled movies.
These ablist, classist underpinnings are gussied up with a very charming turn by Ms Clarke who bounces amiably off such capable actors as Doctor Who's Jenna Coleman (playing Lou's sister and confidante), Janet McTeer and Charles Dance (as Will's parents) and Matthew Lewis (as Lou's soon-to-be-cuckolded boyfriend). Claflin tries valiantly to bring humanity to Will, but no amount of tragedy can compensate for the character's overpowering sense of entitlement.
A series of dates and musical montages soon segues into a finale which ought to deliver a big emotional punch but instead turns its gaze away. Where did the pandering go?
Director Thea Sharrock and director of photography Remi Adefarasin ensure that everything is so pretty you won’t need those tissues after all. Expect queues: sanitised sells.
