I just want to be a man who’s been to a concert with a girl in a red dress.

Me Before You

(2016)

(SPOILERS) Me Before You makes for a surprisingly not insufferable tragi-romance, although that’s largely down to the winning performances of Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin. An adaption of Jojo Moyles novel of the same name, by Moyles herself and directed by Thea Sharrock, this tale of a quadriplegic bent on going through with assisted suicide suffers from the combination of tackling difficult subject matter but making it accessible, with the result that it ends up being just another tearjerker.

Part of the problem is that debut feature director Sharrock has diligently thumbed through the romcom 101 rule book for every single choice or decision. Enormous signs hang over each ringingly obvious heartbroken or affirmative musical cue that can be timed to turn up on the soundtrack every five minutes, most brazenly in requisite by-the-numbers montage sequences. Of the latter, the most insufferable finds Clarke’s Lou Clark, in a bid to produce a “reconsider your options” bucket list showing how liveable life is – look how well that worked out for Freeman and Nicholson – thumbing through brochures, books and the Internet for activities to distract Claflin’s Will Traynor from his suicide fixation.

Obviously, grouchy Will (“I don’t do anything, Miss Clarke. I sit, and just about exist”) is going to be slowly warmed up by life-loving Lou, and before long he’s showing her subtitled films, trundling around and about, going to the races, to orchestral recitals, her birthday (much to the annoyance of her boyfriend, Matthew Lewis) and even the wedding of his ex, where the two admit their feelings for each other and promptly take a holiday in Mauritius.

But alas, poor Lou discovers Will’s intentions have not changed, and he still wants to head for Switzerland. There’s been criticism that Me Before You romanticises and condones Will’s third act decision and is consequently irresponsible and insulting to all those who live with disabilities, don’t opt to “take the easy way out” and don’t see life as a terrible burden that can only be alleviated by ending it all. That’s a fair position to take if you see movies as morally obliged to advocate the correct and most positive viewpoint in every scenario. Otherwise, it’s ridiculous, and you should tell the story you’re inspired to tell, and trust your audience is mature enough to recognise that one character making the "wrong" decision is not necessarily an endorsement or recommendation to everyone in that situation. Really, it shouldn’t need saying, but it’s the common problem whenever something in the arts is tarred with the brush of responsibility to society as a whole, leapt upon by a media keen to blur the lines between fact and fiction.

For my part, I didn’t take away that Will’s decision as noble or honourable (“I can’t be the kind of man who just accepts this, I don’t want you to miss all the things I can’t give you”), although more emotionally fragile audience members might see it that way. The problem with the movie is that, by its final reel, it has become so sodden with didactic, emotionally bowel-moving dirges, it eschews much resonance at all. Another sugar-coated Hollywood weepie, shamelessly manipulative and heartstring pulling, which eventually becomes a bit wearing.

As noted, however, Claflin and Clarke who make this work as well as it does, and at times they’re so good you nearly forget that you’re being played like a violin. Particularly Clarke, who can come across as a bit wooden elsewhere (Game of Thrones, anyone? Mentioning Terminator: Genisys would be plain unfair) Also on hand are Charles Dance in a surprise nice guy dad role, Janet McTeer, who finds much more in Will’s mum than there is on the page, Jenna “Clara” Coleman as Lou’s sister and Joanna Lumley as a wise soul at a wedding. Steve Peacocke’s also hugely sympathetic as Nathan’s carer.

Watching beautiful people die tragically but gorgeously (Love Story, Dying Young) is a Hollywood staple, and they rarely make particularly good movies, feeding on their intended audience’s most self-indulgent, sentimental impulses, so Me Before You’s kind of lucky that it’s as unobjectionable as it is.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989)
(SPOILERS) There’s Jaws, there’s Star Wars, and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy, to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “mainly boring”.

Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the system when Burton did it (even…

You guys sure like watermelon.

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses (2019)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps, if Martin Scorsese hadn’t been so opposed to the idea of Marvel movies constituting cinema, The Irishman would have been a better film. It’s a decent film, assuredly. A respectable film, definitely. But it’s very far from being classic. And a significant part of that is down to the usually assured director fumbling the execution. Or rather, the realisation. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills the ranks of revered critics have been taking so as to recite as one the mantra that you quickly get used to the de-aging effects so intrinsic to its telling – as Empire magazine put it, “you soon… fuggadaboutit” – but you don’t. There was no point during The Irishman that I was other than entirely, regrettably conscious that a 75-year-old man was playing the title character. Except when he was playing a 75-year-old man.

I'm reliable, I'm a very good listener, and I'm extremely funny.

Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I wrote my 23 to see in 2019, I speculated that James Cameron might be purposefully giving his hand-me-downs to lesser talents because he hubristically didn’t want anyone making a movie that was within a spit of the proficiency we’ve come to expect from him. Certainly, Robert Rodriguez and Tim Miller are leagues beneath Kathryn Bigelow, Jimbo’s former spouse and director of his Strange Days screenplay. Miller’s no slouch when it comes to action – which is what these movies are all about, let’s face it – but neither is he a craftsman, so all those reviews attesting that Terminator: Dark Fate is the best in the franchise since Terminator 2: Judgment Day may be right, but there’s a considerable gulf between the first sequel (which I’m not that big a fan of) and this retcon sequel to that sequel.

This popularity of yours. Is there a trick to it?

The Two Popes (2019)
(SPOILERS) Ricky Gervais’ Golden Globes joke, in which he dropped The Two Popes onto a list of the year’s films about paedophiles, rather preceded the picture’s Oscar prospects (three nominations), but also rather encapsulated the conversation currently synonymous with the forever tainted Roman Catholic church; it’s the first thing anyone thinks of. And let’s face it, Jonathan Pryce’s unamused response to the gag could have been similarly reserved for the fate of his respected but neglected film. More people will have heard Ricky’s joke than will surely ever see the movie. Which, aside from a couple of solid lead performances, probably isn’t such an omission.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.

Look, the last time I was told the Germans had gone, it didn't end well.

1917 (2019)
(SPOILERS) When I first heard the premise of Sam Mendes’ Oscar-bait World War I movie – co-produced by Amblin Partners, as Spielberg just loves his sentimental war carnage – my first response was that it sounded highly contrived, and that I’d like to know how, precisely, the story Mendes’ granddad told him would bear any relation to the events he’d be depicting. And just why he felt it would be appropriate to honour his relative’s memory via a one-shot gimmick. None of that has gone away on seeing the film. It’s a technical marvel, and Roger Deakins’ cinematography is, as you’d expect, superlative, but that mastery rather underlines that 1917 is all technique, that when it’s over and you get a chance to draw your breath, the experience feels a little hollow, a little cynical and highly calculated, and leaves you wondering what, if anything, Mendes was really trying to achieve, beyond an edge-of-the-seat (near enough) first-person actioner.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog