Emilia Clarke’s moving film that is killing her on Prime Video

Content warning: This article discusses topics that some readers may find triggering, including physician-assisted suicide.

In the midst of her tenure as Daenerys Targaryen on “Game of Thrones,” Emilia Clarke found time to film an emotional, tearful romance movie… and years later, it’s finding new life on the Amazon Prime streaming service. So what is the movie?

Released in 2016, “Me Before You,” based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Jojo Moyes, published four years earlier, tells the story of Louisa “Lou” Clark (Clarke), a cheerful but unmotivated young woman. Woman who ends up working as a home caretaker for Will Traynor (Sam Claflin), who led an extremely active life as a banker and athlete before suffering a motorcycle accident. Will struggles deeply with his new life as a quadriplegic (meaning he has a devastating spinal cord injury that affects his ability to move his arms and legs) and, frankly, has a very hard attitude about how his entire world has changed, but Lou’s irrepressible spirit and bold nature unexpectedly captivate him, helping him live life more fully.

Unfortunately, before Lou enters Will’s life, he makes the decision to end his life at a clinic in Switzerland that allows physician-assisted suicide. As much as Lou tries to convince Will not to go down that path, he eventually does. Lou spends the last moments of Will’s life by his side, and after his death, it is revealed that he left her a large amount of money to encourage her to live. his life to the fullest, something she reads in a letter Will left with his last will and testament as she sits in her favorite cafe in Paris.

The movie is exciting, no doubt, but apparently people at Amazon Prime are embracing it. So what did critics say about “Me Before You” when it was first released?

Before addressing the critical response to “Me Before You,” it is very It is important to note that the film caused a sensation in the disability community, and No in a good way. Understandably, many disability advocates felt that the film’s message was that life with a disability is no life at all, which is certainly It is not true, and the Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus reflects this, reading: “‘Me Before You’ benefits from Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin’s seductive chemistry, although it’s not enough to compensate for its clumsy treatment of a sensitive subject.” With an average rating of 54%, officially “rotten”, what did the critics say about it?

Roxana Hadidi, writing for drunk critics at that point, he got right to the heart of the matter: “The solid performances don’t make up for the problematic parts of ‘Me Before You,’ of which there are many.” In his review for voiceAja Romano expressed a similar sentiment, writing, “In other words, if you’ve ever wanted your romance to have a side of disability and chronic pain, ‘Me Before You’ is perfect for you, as long as you don’t want it.” realistic representation of any of those things.” Meanwhile, in New York MagazineDavid Edelstein was so hard on the book and the film, joking: “Fans of Jojo Moyes’ best-selling novel will be heartened to know that she also wrote the screenplay and has kept all the lines that, when read aloud, will spark much joy at your next dinner party.” ” However, just for balance, David Ehrlich in IndieWire He liked it quite a bit, calling “Me Before You” “a film so wonderfully uncynical that it almost doesn’t matter that it’s not very good.”

The bottom line is that even though “Me Before You” was a huge critical failure, both Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin went on to do bigger and better projects. Obviously, Clarke continued playing Daenerys Targaryen on the HBO juggernaut “Game of Thrones” until the show came to an end in 2019, although that It also generated a lot of controversy (largely because the final episode was, uh, not very good). After her time as Daenerys, Clarke took on another tearful love story: the 2019 film “Last Christmas” with Henry Golding and Emma Thompson; He lent his voice to the 2022 film “The Amazing Maurice” and appeared in a romantic comedy with a sci-fi character. -fi called “The Pod Generation”, which was released in 2023. That same year, she officially joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe as G’iah in the Disney+ original series “Secret”. Invasion.”

As for Claflin, he gained fame and acclaim for his role as Finnick Odair in the “Hunger Games” films before “Me Before You,” and after playing Will Traynor, he joined the cast of the Irish drama “Peaky Blinders”. You can also catch Claflin in the 2020 Netflix original “Enola Holmes,” where he plays Mycroft Holmes alongside Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill as Enola and Sherlock, respectively, and most recently, Claflin received rave reviews for his role main character as troubled (and fictional) rock star Billy Dunne in “Daisy Jones & the Six.” If you’re curious about “Me Before You,” it’s now available to stream on Amazon Prime.

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