Starring: Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Jenna Coleman, Charles Dance, Matthew Lewis, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Janet McTeer, Brendan Coyle
Story: Romantic drama directed by Thea Sharrock. Me Before You (2016) follows Lou Clark (Emilia Clarke), a small-town girl with no clear direction, and Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), a wealthy banker left wheelchair-bound after an accident. Hired as his caretaker, Lou sets out to show Will that life is worth living. As they embark on a series of adventures, their lives change in unexpected ways.
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Heart-Wrenching Me Before You Quotes
Camilla Traynor: [referring to Will] We are talking about complete loss of the legs, and very limited use of the arms and the hands. Would that bother you?
Lou Clark: Not as much as it would bother him. Obviously.
Camilla Traynor: Your previous employer, here, says you are a warm, chatty and life-enhancing presence with a lot of potential.
Lou Clark: Yes, I paid him.
Will Traynor: You don’t have to talk across me, mother. My brain isn’t paralyzed. Yet.
Lou Clark: What am I hear for?
Nathan: [referring to Will] To cheer him up I guess.
Lou Clark: What do you usually do?
Will Traynor: I don’t do anything, Miss Clark. I sit. I just about exist.
Will Traynor: My mother says you’re chatty.
Lou Clark: Yeah.
Will Traynor: Can we strike a deal? Whereby you are very unchatty around me.
Lou Clark: Every time I speak, he looks at me like I’m stupid.
Katrina Clark: To be fair, you are pretty stupid.
Lou Clark: Yeah, but he doesn’t know that yet.
Alicia: You can only help someone who actually wants to be helped.
Will Traynor: [to Lou] Spare me the cod psychology. Just go and raid your grandma’s wardrobe, or whatever it is you do when you’re not making tea.
Lou Clark: You don’t have to be an a**! Your friends got the s**tty treatment. Fine. They deserved it. I’m just trying to do my job as best I can. So it would be really nice if you didn’t try and make my life as miserable as you apparently make everyone else’s.
Will Traynor: What if I said I didn’t want you here?
Lou Clark: I’m not employed by you. I’m employed by your mother. So unless she says she doesn’t want me here anymore, I’m staying. Not because I care about you, or particularly enjoy your company, but because I need the money. I really need the money.
Will Traynor: You really don’t enjoy sarcasm, do you?
Lou Clark: Sarcasm is fine. I just don’t like superiority.
Lou Clark: I don’t do much, okay? I go to work and I go home, and that’s it.
Will Traynor: Wow. Your life’s even duller than mine.
Will Traynor: Interesting choice of footwear.
Lou Clark: Patrick says they make me look like a leprechaun drag queen.
Will Traynor: He was being nice.
Will Traynor: [to Lou] This is the kind of place people come to when they’ve got tired of actually living. People here think excitement is a new “please be quiet” sign going up in the library. You should be out there, claiming the world as your own. Showing your leprechaun shoes to dodgy men.
Will Traynor: You know what I see when I look at you?
Lou Clark: Don’t say “potential”.
Will Traynor: Potential. You need to widen your horizons, Clark. You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.
Will Traynor: [after she’s finished shaving his face] Please don’t tell me you shaved off my eyebrows.
Lou Clark: Only the one.
Lou Clark: You know what, Sharon? You can stick your Premier Badge right up your relaxed dining area.
Will Traynor: [to Lou] I just want to be a man who has been to a concert with a girl in a red dress.
Mary Rawlinson: [to Lou, referring to Will] You take care of him, he’s a good one. Take it from who knows. Four marriages and counting.
Will Traynor: [as Lou is sat on his lap] You never would have let those breasts so near to me if I wasn’t in a wheelchair.
Lou Clark: Oh, yeah? Well, you never would have even looking at these breasts if you hadn’t been in a wheelchair.
Will Traynor: Do you know something, Clark? You are pretty much the only thing that makes me want to get up in the morning.
Nathan: Now, I can’t judge what he wants to do. That’s his choice.
Lou Clark: But that was before me.
Nathan: Yeah, and I know that he did pretty much anything to make you happy. Look, I want him to live, Lou. But only if he wants to live.
Lou Clark: I can’t just let this happen. I can’t. And we’re running out of time.
Lou Clark: Listen, I know this is not how you would have chosen it, but I can make you happy.
Will Traynor: No.
Lou Clark: What?
Will Traynor: No, Clark.
Will Traynor: I can’t be the kind of man who just accepts this.
Lou Clark: You’re not giving it a chance. You’re not giving me a chance. I have become a whole new person these last six months because of you.
Will Traynor: I know. And that’s why I can’t have you tied to me. I don’t want you to miss all the things that someone else could give you. And selfishly, I don’t want you to look at me one day and feel even the tiniest bit of regret or pity.
Lou Clark: I would never think that!
Will Traynor: You don’t know that.
Will Traynor: [to Lou] This, tonight, being with you is the most wonderful thing you could have ever done for me. But I need it to end here. No more pain and exhaustion and waking up every morning already wishing it was over. It’s not going to get better than this. The doctors know it and I know it. When we get back, I am going to Switzerland. So I’m asking you if you feel the things you say you feel, come with me.
Lou Clark: I thought that I was changing your mind!
Will Traynor: Nothing was ever going to change my mind. I promised my parents six months, and that’s what I’ve given them.
Lou Clark: No! No. Don’t say another word. You’re so selfish. I tore my heart out in front of you, and here all you can say is no. And now you want me to come and watch the worst thing you could possibly imagine. Do you have any idea what you’re asking? I wish I had never taken this stupid job! I wish I had never met you.
Bernard Clark: You can’t change who people are.
Lou Clark: Then what can you do?
Bernard Clark: You love them.
Will Traynor: Will you stay?
Lou Clark: For as long as you want me to.
Will Traynor: [from his letter to Lou] There are a few things I wanted to say and couldn’t, because you would have got all emotional and you wouldn’t have let me finish. So, here it is. When you get back home, Michael Lawler will give you access to a bank account that contains enough to give you a new beginning. Don’t start panicking. It’s not enough for you to sit around for the rest of your life, but it should buy you your freedom. At least from that little town we both call home.
Will Traynor: [from his letter] Live boldly, Clark. Push yourself. Don’t settle.
Will Traynor: [from his letter] Wear those stripy legs with pride. Knowing you still have possibilities is a luxury. Knowing I might have given them to you has eased something for me. So, this is it. You are scored on my heart, Clark. You were from the first day you walked in with your sweet smile and your ridiculous clothes. And your bad jokes and your complete inability to ever hide a single thing you felt. Don’t think of me too often. I don’t want you getting sad. Just live well. Just live. I’ll be walking beside you every step of the way. Love, Will.