Hey guys, today is going to be the first disability movie review. Today I am going
to watch the movie Me Before You and give you my feedback
I had already filmed this video once before but I did not like the way it
turned out so I decided to film it this way. It's
much easier quicker, easier for me to edit and it's more concise and condensed.
The movies that I review in this series will have disabled chronically ill or
terminally ill characters in the movie. Just a disclaimer I do have a
disability myself, multiple actually and while I'm not in a wheelchair there are
many disabled people who are not in a wheelchair. All of the opinions or
views that I expressed in this video may not apply to all disabled people.
And all the opinions and views are my own. So the way this video is going to work
is I'm going to tell you the plot of the movie, who the actors and actresses are,
my initial opinions thoughts and feelings before I watch the movie, how many in the
disabled community feel about the movie, and while watching the movie I will
write down my thoughts and opinions which I will then share later on which
is me filming, now. So that is kind of how the process works when I make a video
like this. So before I get started on this video any further I would like to
say that there are going to be spoilers, so if you have not seen this movie
please do not watch any further. Also please comment below what movies you
would like me to review next that have a disabled, chronically ill, or terminally ill
character within the movie. So Me Before You is categorized as a drama romance it
came out in 2016, it's also based off of the book of the same name by Jojo Moyes.
Here is what the film is about. Young and quirky Louisa 'Lou' Clark played by
Emilia Clark, moved from one job to the next to help her
family make ends meet. Her cheerful attitude is put to the test when she
becomes a caregiver for Will Traynor, played by Sam Claflin, a wealthy
young banker left paralyzed from an accident two years earlier. Will's cynical
outlook starts to change when Lousia shows him that life is worth living. As
their bond deepens their lives and hearts change in ways neither one could
have imagined. So the actors actresses in this movie are.. I will put them probably
on the screen so you can see their faces if you don't, you know you can't put
names to faces. So we have Emilia Clarke playing Louisa or 'Lou' Clark. We have Sam
Claflin playing Will Traynor. We have Jenna Coleman as Katrina Clark, Lou's
sister. We have Charles Dance as Steven Traynor, Will's dad.
Uh, we have Janet McTeer as Camellia Traynor, Will's mother. We have Matthew Lewis as
Patrick, Lou's boyfriend. We have Brendan Coyle as Bernard Clark, Lou's dad. We have Vanessa
Kirby as Alicia Dewares, Will's ex-girlfriend
We have Ben Lloyd Hughes as Rupert Collins, Will's ex-best friend. We have Steve
Pea - Paco - I can't pronounce his last name as (lol) as Nathan, Will's male nurse and full-time
caregiver. So those are pretty much all the main characters in the plot that
you kinda need to know about. Okay so my initial thoughts and opinions before
watching this movie, is that it's a romance. The girl takes care of a guy in
a wheelchair and they end up falling in love. But the guy in the wheelchair
decides because he's disabled he can't live his life as a disabled person and
so he goes and he commits assisted suicide. Because there is a disabled
character in this movie that commits suicide
I typically would not watch this movie at all, especially after I heard all the
backlash from it. Um, it's really not something I would watch and support and
say "oh this is such a great movie because, {sigh} it's probably not going to be a
great movie or something I would enjoy. And I think that having a disabled
character that goes and commits assisted suicide is very damaging and
not something that really should be portrayed in the disabled community
considering so many things concerning eugenics with disabled people. I did not
have the greatest opinion of this movie. So how do people in the disabled
community feel about this movie? I'm gonna go to wiki for that. The film has
suffered a backlash from many people in the disability rights movement due to
what they perceive as an underlying message that people with disabilities
are a burden on their families and carers. And claim the film promotes the
view that disabled people are better off dead than disabled. The view of the
film as advocating suicide so that their loved ones can live boldly. The
hashtag me before euthanasia backlash was led by celebrities with disabilities
such as Liz Carr, Penny Pepper, Mik Scarlett, and Cherylee Houston and Not
Dead Yet UK in the UK and Dominick Evans, Emily Ladau, and activists from Not Dead
yet in the US. Protests in the US occurred in Los Angeles, New York, Boston
various locations in Colorado, in Texas Atlanta, Baltimore, Connecticut, Rochester,
San Francisco, and multiple locations around the country. The film was also
protested in Australia. So we do not have a very warm spots from the disabled
community. So as I was writing the script, this is the point where I went and I
watched the movie. And this movie is like two and a half hours long. And while I was
watching the movie I was looking at this was a very critical eye. I was looking
for scenes that were problematic, and boy was I not disappointed!
Warning beyond this point there are going to be spoilers. So right at the
start of the movie, Will, who was played by Sam Claflin, is active and happy and he
has a great life, and a girlfriend and then the accident happens. Lou, played by
Emilia Clark, she gets fired from her job and has to go and find a new one. The
job ends up looking for after she is fired is one to look after Will. And after
quite an awkward interview she gets the job. When she meets Will for the first
time, Will starts to have this so-called episode where he has a fit, but he's
faking it and mocking someone who may have a developmental disability, like, maybe
they got cerebral palsy, it's more of long lines of how maybe some of those
people with disabilities would act. I really hope that does not come off as offensive
but that's the best way I can explain this scene without you not actually watching it.
But he goes into this fit where he is mocking someone who has a different
disability just to freak Lou out. It does freak Lou out. This is a very
disturbing scene. This is so uncomfortable to watch, and it's right at
the beginning of the movie. It is, it's not a good scene and it's not
comfortable to sit through and watch. It's, {sigh} it's disturbing and it's sickening and it's
disgusting. And it just turns out that Will is the stereotypical, cynical,
depressed, and disabled guy. Well I think that pretty much counts as our first
ableist a scene in the movie, and it was honestly disgusting and wrong on
many levels. Later on in the movie there's this scene with Will's ex-girlfriend and ex best
friend, and they come to visit. And they haven't seen well since his accident
pretty much. While they are there, they ask him how things are going, if his mobility
has improved, if he's able to, you know, regain any use of his limbs. Um, It's
basically just typical things that you would expect as a disabled person that
able-bodied people would ask. Because able-bodied people, always want to know
about disabled bodies. Will's obviously very upset to see that his ex
best friend and his ex-girlfriend are now together and engaged and ready
to be married. After they leave Will gets so mad that he
smashes the pictures that he has of the three of them together. I think this scene is
probably the most realistic scene out of the entire movie. Um, I think they actually
did pretty well with this scene because it realistically depicts what happens
when someone gets sick or becomes disabled, you know, what happens to the
people who are surrounding you. They basically leave you, they don't talk to
you, and they end up, I guess finding comfort in each other. Especially after
such an accident that Will had. So I think that was an extremely realistic scene
and it's probably the only scene that I kind of liked in the movie because it
was realistic. And then afterwards we reached another semi problematic point in
the movie. Will has to go to the hospital for a checkup and Lou came along and so
did Nathan which is Will's nurse. Lou mistakenly thinks that Will is going to
somehow get better. She didn't know what a spinal cord injury was. She thinks the
physio for him is helping to regain his mobility to be able to walk again, not to
maintain proper function of his body. And of course once she realizes that Will is
never going to get better, and he's always going to be paralyzed, and "bound
in a wheelchair" she starts to feel more pity for him. Also
let's just talk about the fact that she takes on a job, looking after a
disabled man, when she knows absolutely nothing about disabled people, their bodies,
how to care for them, and how to provide proper support and care for them. And
it's also pretty bad that Will's parents would take on someone and hire someone
who has no prior experience with working with disabled people. That makes
absolutely no sense. Is that normal to hire carers that know
nothing about your disability, or your illness, or how to care for you, because I
don't think that's quite normal. And when she was hired she seemed pretty
terrified at the prospect of having to give Will medication. She did not seem
very comfortable with giving him medication either. All in all, I, I, don't
understand how she got that job. Probably because she seems so happy and peppy and
they wanted Will to be happier. So a short while later after this scene we see Will
in bed. Uh, he's in bed with a cold or a flu or something like that and he's
quite ill. His parents are away, and the weather's bad, so Nathan, the nurse can't
get there on time. And Lou is quite concerned and doesn't really know what to
do because, once again she has no training and absolutely knows nothing about
disabled people, specifically, spinal cord injuries, and what can happen when they
become sick. So Will's temperature isn't properly regulating and that's quite
dangerous. So, once the nurse is able to get there
he does all he can to help Will. And Lou it's a bit shaken up, and Will ends up
being okay. About halfway through the film, Lou stumbles across a Will's parents
having an argument about Will's decision to commit assisted suicide in
Switzerland. And she learns that Will has six months to live.
His father is okay with Will's decision, but his mother is desperately
trying to save him. And it's also mentioned that in the past Will has
attempted to take his own life. And when Lou hears this news she is quite upset, and
she's very troubled by this, and talks to her sister about it, and her sister
suggests that she tries to make Will as happy as possible to take him out, get
him out of the house, you know, that sort of thing, because you know, traveling
cures depression. And her sister tells her to, you know, make a bucket list
for Will and show him that life is worth living.
She thinks that by doing this it could change Will's mindset and possibly sway
his choice to commit assisted suicide. And in the next scene, Lou goes through those plans
and they go to the horse races, and then when they get there, Will's wheelchair
- motorized wheelchair, gets stuck in the mud. Nathan and Lou cannot unstuck the
wheelchair, so Will is pretty much stuck there and Lou calls over a group of
guys to help push Will out of the mud, which Will is very uncomfortable with, and I
would imagine feels very much like a burden and emasculated by it because of
course Will before becoming disabled was a very independent person. Later on, Will
finally meets Lou's family, including her boyfriend who ends up being late to
supper. During Lou's birthday supper, Lou has to feed Will, because Will does
not have use of his arms. He's paralyzed pretty much on the shoulders down. And
Lou's boyfriend does not seem too impressed with Lou having to feed Will.
Lou's boyfriend Patrick, then tries to give will a fitness regime because he's
a personal trainer. Obviously this is not going to work out and it's a
scene that those depict I think, ah, quite accurately what happens when, ah, able-bodied
people try to recommend things to disabled people, which obviously does not
work out for the disabled person at all. In another scene Will and Lou are at a castle
and he tells Lou that his favorite place to be is Paris. And Lou suggests that they
should go to Paris but Will doesn't want to go. Will says that he wants to be
there as his old self, his abled body self. He then describes the inaccessibility of
Paris, the streets, his wheelchair not fitting through doors, or going on the
sidewalk. He describes taxi drivers refusing to take him any places because
of his wheelchair, and how his wheelchair won't charge in certain outlets in
Paris. I think this is also quite a realistic representation of what it's
like to be disabled, to have a disability, and have a world that is built for
able-bodied people and something, you know, the world is so inaccessible to so
many people. I think that is a quite a realistic representation. But we also see
that Will still has a lot of anger and feelings about being disabled and not
being able to do what he wants because he is disabled. And then health scare
number two hits. This happens after they had gone to Will's ex best friend's and
ex-girlfriends wedding. He ends up with a bit of cough and he has trouble
regulating his body temperature and Will ends up being hospitalized with Pneumonia
and it's revealed that he has had many bouts of Pneumonia in the past.
And Lou still doesn't understand that Will's body weak. But after Will's
hospital stay, they go on a tropical vacation. And they have a great time. Lou
thinks she has turned the Will's mind around. Until the last night of their
trip when Will is about to tell Lou about his plans to commit assisted
suicide. And then she tells him that she already knows. She then tells him, 'look I
can make you happy, because look where we are. We're in this beautiful tropical
place, you've had such fun for the past few days, you were smiling, you were
laughing you look like you're having a great time. So why would you want to kill
yourselves when you can just enjoy life.' That's pretty much how the scene played
out. And Will says no and goes on to say that him being disabled, isn't his life.
And then he tells Lou that they can't be happy together,
and he can't on keep living his life, not feeling like the man that he once was,
and that he can never give Lou everything she wants because he is
disabled. Will asks Lou to come with him to Switzerland when he goes to commit
assisted suicide, and Lou is absolutely horrified idea. They get into a fight
she leaves him on the beach and she does not say a word the entire flight home.
She also ends up quitting her job looking after Will. Lou then later on,
decides to go to Switzerland when Will is committing assisted suicide.
Will and Lou spend a short while together and Lou calls in his parents
and then Will goes ahead with the procedure and he has committed assisted
suicide. The next scene we see is of Lou in Paris, reading a letter from Will that
he had written before he had committed assisted suicide. In the letter Will gifts
Lou a generous sum of money so that she can go off to college or university and
so that her family doesn't have to work so hard. WIll then tells her to live
boldly, to push herself, and to not settle. And, that's pretty much the end of the movie.
Okay so my thoughts. I think watching this movie a second time I have a
slightly different opinion. While I think this movie as a whole is problematic, ie
the ableist language, the references, the stereotypes, and the behavior. And there are
quite a few scenes in the movie that are ableist and quite problematic. I think
when you're making a movie about a disabled character, than it is your duty to
portray that character in a realistic way. Not the stereotypical, you know, all
disabled people are either in wheelchairs, blind, or deaf or if they're
either of those things then they must be absolutely, you know, depressed, and mad, and
cynical, and unhappy, because they are disabled. And that is something that, you
know, it's not true for most of the population and it's something that is so
overplayed in movies. I know money can't make people happy but Will's family were,
they were rich. They lived in a freaking castle, they had a lot of money, Will had the
best care, the best medicine. He had a nurse, food, you know, a shelter. He had a
very comfortable life being disabled, which many disabled people do not have.
Obviously money can't make you happy but it does help to make things a bit easier
when you're disabled. And another problematic part of the movie was Will's
attitude and the way he was portrayed. Not only was he portrayed by an
able-bodied man in a motorized wheelchair who has paraplegia, and some
of the mannerisms he used to, you know, faked being paralyzed we're kind of
awkward. Will is basically the stereotypical rich guy, who's disabled in a
wheelchair. He sits in his house, watches DVDs, doesn't leave the house, um, he's always
in a bad mood, he's sarcastic, he's cynical, and he makes some ableist come
backs. His character is quite damaging to the whole of disability and how its
portrayed in the media. And it's portrayed in such
negative light. But there is another side to this and something that I don't think
a lot of people have really talked about. Will is very unhappy with being disabled
and not having the use of his legs and arms.
He talks various times throughout the film about how he wasn't a real man,
because he was Disabled. This is not good. The message that you are sending to the
general audience, when you hear a disabled character on film talk this way,
is that you aren't whole, a real man, or a real woman, if you are disabled. And that
is a very ableist, and damaging thing to be portraying on film. And I think that's
one of things people really don't talk about when reviewing this film. Will
had some very deep-seated, ah, internalized ableism because of his disability.
Another thing they really didn't mention is that Will is depressed and has suicidal
tendencies. We hear that he tried to commit suicide in the past and from what I can see
will is very depressed. It doesn't look like he was really ever to see a mental
health care provider to help him work through his disability and his grief,
because when you do become disabled, you do grieve your former life and your past
self. But he really had no counseling on that at all from what I could tell from
watching the movie because it's so blatantly obvious that he's struggling
being disabled and not thinking himself as a whole person because he is disabled.
Will also suffers with a lot of chronic pain as the reviled by his male
nurse Nathan, so you have more than one reason why it will made his decision.
We also have to remember that the book was written by an able-bodied author and
the movie is based off of the book so much of the script would probably be very
similar to the book. I've ever read the book, so I don't know how similar it is
but, when you typically have someone writing a book about a disabled
character who is able-bodied you're going to get some very stereotypical
stereotypes. She obviously did not do her research or did not talk to disabled
people ,and yeah, that's the result of it. You get a lot of ableist scenes and
internalized ableism within disabled character itself. So let's talk about the main controversy
surrounding the film and that's assisted suicide for disabled people.
The main reason why this became so controversial is because when you talk
about assisted suicide and disabled people, eugenics always comes to mind. For
a very long time and even still today there are people who view disabled
people as less than human, waste of space, burdens on their families, and burdens on
society. They feel sorry for them, so they put them out of their misery by
killing them. And this is very problematic. I was shocked to see that so
many people blatantly ignored this issue when watching or wanting to watch this
movie. Especially when disabled people pointed out this issue. That this film is
pretty much promoting eugenics. And that is problematic. I don't think people or
society really care though. They just see a romantic movie, with a quirky
girl who's happy all the time, and positive, and they see this girl looking
after a very handsome looking rich disabled man, who in the end, commits
suicide because he feels less than, or they sympathize with them and think oh
it's so sad that they're disabled, that they have to live a life bound in a
wheelchair, bound to your house. Will had a lot of internalized ableism going on
and there's a lot of internalized ableism everywhere in this world. And a
lot of able-bodied people just don't know what ableism is, what eugenics is
and they don't know how to pick it out in a movie scene. And specifically Will's
depression isn't it all talked about in the film
either. But you know he must have. He hates being disabled, he feels like less
than a man, less human, he wants the life he once had and he knows he's never
going to get better, So he feels like a burden. These are all reasons why Will
wants to die. Some of these are understandable, and some of these are
views placed on him by society, such as, feeling like less of a man
because he is disabled. I think when we get talking about assisted suicide it is
such a slippery slope. Right now in Canada, assisted
suicide it's only available to those who are terminally ill and ready to die,
pretty much. And, you know you want to make it as humane, and easy, and painless
as possible. It's not really there for people who are disabled and want to die
or have mental health issues and want to die. I don't know what the laws
are like in UK or the US, but there has to be precautions in place and every
possible treatment and outcome has to be explored before coming to that decision.
Do I think this movie is ableist and problematic? Yes, I think this is a
terrible portrayal of a disabled person. This movie is just for pure
entertainment and I think most people pretty much ignored anything that
disabled people had say it was this film, or the problematic things that are
portrayed in this film as well. Was the movie even enjoyable? Kind of. Lou's
character was very quirky, but also very, very annoying. I, really didn't like her
much. And Will is just grumpy, rude, sarcastic, and he is just stereotypically disabled.
But in a way, I do, I do feel for Will's because, it is hard being disabled, it's
hard being sick, yes I completely understand that, but he's conditioned in
a way to think that society doesn't want him as a disabled person and that he
can't be a contribution to society which, it is very ableist and something that
is very problematic and should not be portrayed. We're trying, as disabled
people we're trying to, you know, squash these stereotypes, and here we are having
a film in, you know, 2016 that's portraying this, that many people
went out and seen, and it did so well in the box office and people loved the
movie because, you know, they were so happy and it was like an
emotional rollercoaster, and they all cried at the end of the film, but none of them really took
away what the film was about, or what that deep message was about. I would give
this movie probably a rating out of two of maybe five stars, maybe even less
because honestly, it wasn't that enjoyable, I mean it was a little bit. I
could withstand watching through it, like it wasn't painfully awful, but also there
was some many painfully ableist and problematic scenes that I really thought
were distasteful and disgusting. Would I recommend you to watch this movie? No, not
really. I really wouldn't recommend anyone to watch this movie because it was
that horrible. Um, I think especially if you're in abled
body person, and you, you know, obviously people want diversity in film, they want
to see people's different perspectives and outlooks, but this is not a film you
should be watching in order to gain a different perspective or view point,
because it is very problematic and ableist, so yeah, and if you are disabled
and going to watch this film I also caution you because this could trigger
feelings of depression and maybe even suicidal ideologies, it's one of those
films that can trigger you because it talks about some very heavy issues, talks
about, you know, assisted suicide. Will constantly talks about how he doesn't
feel like a man because he is disabled. I would love to know other people's
opinions and thoughts on this movie if they have watched it as well, please
leave those in the comments below, and if you have read the book, please leave what you
think about the book in the comments below, and if you've seen the movie how
it differed from the book to the movie. Was the book more ableist, was the movie
more ableist. Which was worse, which was better, that sort of thing, so please
leave those in the comments below. Also once again please leave in the comments
below what movie you would like me to see to review next that has a chronically ill,
disabled, or terminally ill character in the movie, I will gladly review movies.
I am thinking about doing this bi-monthly so my next film that I will be watching
it's going to be Everything, Everything - which also received a lot of backlash
from the disabled community. So, thank you for watching this extremely long video,
please be sure to give this video a thumbs up, subscribe your new,
please be sure to hit the notification button down below to get notified when I
upload new videos, all my social media links will be in the description below,
and I hope to see you guys next time, bye 💚
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