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stevimf
Reviews
Me Before You (2016)
A lot of people missed the point.
It is very easy to pick out the people who have only seen the movie and never read the book.
Those talking about how Will was selfish and how just because he was disabled didn't mean he was a burden or that he didn't need other people to live his life. That was never the point of the storyline. Will was a complete quadriplegic. He was 100% reliant on other people. He was in pain all the time. He had numerous bouts of pneumonia, was extremely prone to infections and could literally do nothing for himself. He had a limited range of motion in 2 fingers which in the book allows him to use a laptop, along with voice assistance, acquired for him by Lou .
If the movie had gone in the opposite direction and Will had decided to live, these same people would complain saying "oh this movie is just saying that all your problems go away as soon as an able bodied person comes along to help".
He made a promise. To give his parents 6 months. He hated his life, he hated being unable to to touch the woman he fell in love with, hated not being able to feed himself, wash himself, even sit up in bed himself without someone having to physically move him.
As much as Lou brought joy into his life, he didn't want her look after him for her whole life. He didn't want looked after his whole life. The movie isn't glorifying suicide. He wanted the pain, both physical and mental, to end. It was one thing that he could control and he made that choice.
The story basically is a "you never know what will happen" story. Will, who had absolutely loved the life he had before his accident, sees that Lou is wasting her life away in a small village. Although not talked about properly in the movie, (she simply mentions that she had a place but didn't go) the reason Lou turned down her place to Manchester University was because she was raped and she was too scared to leave. He wants her to go and live her life to the fullest, the way he always had. Lou had brought him joy again in the final few months of his life, and he died happy, rather than angry.
(And yes, I'm disabled).