Starring: Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin, Jenna Coleman, Charles Dance, Matthew Lewis, Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Janet McTeer, Brendan Coyle
OUR RATING: ★★★☆☆
Story:
Romantic drama directed by Thea Sharrock. Me Before You (2016) follows Lou Clark (Emilia Clarke), a small town girl with no clear direction in her life she goes from one job to the next and Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), a wealthy young banker who became wheelchair bound in an accident two years prior, and whose whole world changed dramatically in the blink of an eye. After Lou is hired for six months to be his new caretaker, she becomes determined to show him that life is worth living. Embarking together on a series of adventures, both Lou and Will get more than they bargained for, and find their lives changing in ways neither one could have imagined.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'You can't change who people are. You love them.' - Bernard Clark (Me Before You) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes
Will Traynor: [walking in the city as it’s raining hard talking on the phone] Yeah, listen. I’m on it, and we can close it.
Will Traynor: [he steps out onto the road] Taxi! Yeah, and we won’t. don’t worry.
[we see motorcycle on the road honking its horn and it suddenly hits Will]
Syed: [at the job center] We tried a chicken factory.
Lou Clark: I’m still having nightmares about those giblets.
Syed: We tried a beautician.
Lou Clark: Turns out a hot wax is not my friend.
Syed: I’m running out of options for you here, Lou.
Lou Clark: Please, I’ll take anything.
Syed: Well this is new. “Care and companionship for a disabled man.”
Camilla Traynor: Do you have any experience of caregiving?
Lou Clark: I’ve never done it. But I’m sure I could learn.
Camilla Traynor: Then let’s go and meet Will.
Camilla Traynor: Will, this is Lou Clark.
Camilla Traynor: [to Lou] Nathan will talk you through Will’s routine and equipment.
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: To cheer him up I guess.
Lou Clark: So I thought we could go out this afternoon.
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: He hates me. 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.
Lou Clark: I just thought I’d see if I could fix some of these. Or, you know, I you wanted to get new ones I could go into town at lunch time, or we could both go if that sounds…
Will Traynor: Do you know what, Lou? Me smashing those photographs was not an accident.
Lou Clark: Sorry. I didn’t think.
Will Traynor: You thought you knew best. Well I don’t want those pictures staring at me every time I’m stuck in bed waiting for someone to bloody get me out again, okay?
Lou Clark: I wasn’t going to fix the one of, Alicia. Enough of that, that’s just stupid.
Will Traynor: Spare me the cod psychology, just go and rage 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 friend 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: And what if I said I didn’t want you hear?
Lou Clark: I’m not employed by you. I’m employed by your mother, who 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: [looks at her for a moment] Just put them in the drawer.
Lou Clark: Don’t smile at me like that.
Will Traynor: Why not?
Lou Clark: Because I don’t know what it means.
Will Traynor: Where did you pick up your exotic tastes?
Lou Clark: What do you mean by that?
Will Traynor: Well it can’t be from around here.
Lou Clark: Why not?
Will Traynor: Because this is the kind of place people come to when they 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.
'You know you can only help someone who actually wants to be helped.' - Alicia (Me Before You) Click To Tweet
Lou Clark: I like my life.
Will Traynor: You like everything.
Lou Clark: I’m happy here.
Will Traynor: Well, you shouldn’t be.
Lou Clark: I was supposed to leave. I had a place at Manchester.
Will Traynor: What were you going to study?
Lou Clark: Fashion.
Will Traynor: Hm. So why didn’t you go? 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: No, stay. Tell me something good. Tell me something.
Lou Clark: About what?
Will Traynor: Anything.
Lou Clark: well when I was little my mum got me a pair of glittery wellies and I refused to take them off. I wore them in bed, in the bath, all summer long. My favorite outfit was the glittery boots and my bumble bee tights.
Will Traynor: Bumble bee tights.
Lou Clark: Black and yellow stripes.
Will Traynor: Oh, dear God.
Lou Clark: I just, I really, really, really liked having stripy legs.
Will Traynor: So what happened to these gorgeous wellies and stripy tights?
Lou Clark: I outgrew them. It broke my heart, and they don’t make those tights anymore, not for grown women anyway.
Will Traynor: Strange that.
Lou Clark: Oh, you can mock. Didn’t you ever love anything that much?
Will Traynor: Yes. Yes, I did.
Will Traynor: [after she’s finished shaving his face] Please don’t tell me you shaved off my eyebrows.
Lou Clark: Only the one.
Patrick: Lou tells me you were an action man before.
Lou Clark: Pat.
Patrick: I bet if we got you on a really good fitness regime.
Lou Clark: Patrick.
Will Traynor: No, it’s fine. Truth is I thought I could crack this and then go back as if nothing had changed. I was wrong.
Will Traynor: When I was a kid this used to be my favorite place in the whole world.
Lou Clark: Oh, I think this would still be my favorite spot.
Will Traynor: That’s because you haven’t been anywhere.
Lou Clark: Oh. So where’s better than this then?
Will Traynor: Paris, Place Dauphine right by the Pont Neuf.
Lou Clark: So let’s go! We could get on the Eurostar right now!
Will Traynor: No.
Lou Clark: But you just said.
Will Traynor: You don’t get it, Clark. I want to in Paris as me. The old me, with pretty French girls giving me the eye.
Lou Clark: It could be something to look forward to.
'Live boldly. Push yourself. Don't settle.' - Will Traynor (Me Before You) Click To Tweet
Will Traynor: [referring to Paris] If I shut my eyes now I know exactly how it feels to be in that little square. I know every sensation. I don’t want those memories erased by the struggle to fit behind a table. The taxi drivers who refuse to take me and my wheelchair power pack that won’t charge in a French socket. I’ll tell you where we will go though.
Lou Clark: Where?
Will Traynor: Alicia’s wedding.
Lou Clark: Really?
Will Traynor: Will you come with me?
Lou Clark: If you want me to.
Will Traynor: [to Lou] Can I take you somewhere?
Camilla Traynor: Will’s barely left the house in two years, we have tried.
Steven Traynor: Yes, but haven’t succeeded. Will needs to be allowed to feel like a man.
Katrina Clark: [to Lou] Use the time he’s got left, show him how good his life can be.
Katrina Clark: [as Lou is trying on outfits for her date with Will] You are so going on a date with Will Traynor.
Lou Clark: It’s too booby.
Katrina Clark: Get the red dress out.
Will Traynor: [after the concert] So you’re not a classical music person then?
Lou Clark: I hated every minute.
Will Traynor: I could tell. Especially during the Oboe Solo.
Lou Clark: There was something in my eyes. I loved it, didn’t you?
Will Traynor: Yeah.
Lou Clark: Right. We’ll better get you in.
Will Traynor: Wait a minute, Clark.
Lou Clark: Are you okay?
Will Traynor: I don’t want to go in yet. I just want to be a man who’s been to a concert with a girl in a red dress, just a few minutes more.
Will Traynor: I promised my parents six months, and that’s what I’ve given them.
Lou Clark: But that was before me.
Nathan: I want him to live, but only if he wants to live.
Lou Clark: I can’t just let this happen.
Bernard Clark: You can’t change who people are.
Lou Clark: Then what can you do?
Bernard Clark: You love them.
'You only get one life. It's actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.' - Will Traynor (Me Before You) Click To Tweet
Will’s Family Friend: [to Lou] You take care of him. He’s a good one.
Will Traynor: I don’t want you to miss all the things that someone else could give you.
Lou Clark: But I can make you happy.
Lou Clark: I have become a whole new person because of you.
Mary Rawlinson: Bride or groom?
Lou Clark: Neither. You?
Mary Rawlinson: Godmother to the bride, which makes morally responsible for her. Not one of my finer acts.
Lou Clark: Oh, you don’t think much of her then?
Mary Rawlinson: [referring to her drink] This is a bit depressing. Still one can’t do these things sober.
Lou Clark: Oh, no, wait. There’s alcohol in this stuff?
Mary Rawlinson: Absolutely, darling. And I firmly encourage you to get as drunk as possible. I hear rumors that the father of the bride is going to inflict another speech on us.
Lou Clark: Oh, no, no, no. But I’m supposed to be driving Will home.
Mary Rawlinson: Ah, yes. Young Will. He was her chance, you know. If only one of that lot was worth a damn. Terrible shame.
Lou Clark: Well he’s not dead.
Mary Rawlinson: No, I meant for her not him! No, Rupert’s an a**hole. You take care of him, he’s a good one. Take it from who knows, four marriages, and counting.
Trailer: