Content material warning: This text discusses themes and material that some readers might 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” — based mostly on the best-selling novel of the identical title 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 entering into a motorbike accident. Will deeply struggles along with his new life as a tetraplegic (that means that he has a devastating spinal wire harm that impacts his means to maneuver his legs and arms) and, frankly, has a extremely tough perspective about how his entire world has modified, however Lou’s irrepressible spirit and daring nature unexpectedly charms him, serving to him dwell life extra totally.
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 dwell 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 sure — however apparently, folks on Amazon Prime are embracing it. So what did critics need to say about “Me Earlier than You” when it was first launched?
Critics — and the disabled neighborhood — truly did not suppose a lot of Me Earlier than You
Earlier than addressing the vital response to “Me Earlier than You,” it is very necessary 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 vital 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 need to say on the matter?
Roxana Hadidi, writing for Punch Drunk Critics on the time, bought proper to the center of the matter: “Stable performances do not stability out the problematic components of ‘Me Earlier than You,’ that are many.” Of their evaluate for Vox, Aja Romano expressed the same sentiment, writing, “In different phrases, in case you’ve ever wished your romance with a facet of incapacity and persistent ache, ‘Me Earlier than You’ is ideal for you — so long as you do not truly desire a real looking 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 will likely 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 banquet.” Only for some stability, although, David Ehrlich at IndieWire fairly favored it, saying “Me Earlier than You” is “such a splendidly uncynical film that it nearly does not matter that it is not superb.”
What have Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin performed since Me Earlier than You?
The underside line is that, even if “Me Earlier than You” was a serious vital misfire, each Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin went on to greater and higher initiatives. 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 Superb 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 position 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 solid of the Irish-set drama “Peaky Blinders.” You can even 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 lately, Claflin acquired rave opinions for his lead position because the troubled (and fictional) rock star Billy Dunne in “Daisy Jones & the Six.” Should you’re interested by “Me Earlier than You,” it is obtainable to stream on Amazon Prime now.
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