It's time to live boldly with Will & Louisa in this terrific feel-good love story

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2016)

It's really hard for me to not spoil the surprises of a movie like "Me Before You". For general moviegoers, they'll be expecting another love story about two people who fall in love until one of the characters has a dark secret that could tear them apart. For fans of the book, they will love the fact that it's incredibly faithful to the Jojo Moyes novel (See "The Fault in Our Stars", "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and other true-to-the-book movies for details), but they will also get so much more out of it. I recently read the novel last month before the film came out and I found the book affectionate, funny and surprisingly uplifting. I think the key to any book-based movie is to find the right actors to have not only good chemistry, but to make sure that audiences will remember the characters in their hearts. Boy, have they lucked out with two immensely charming actors in this terrific film. "Me Before You" tells the story of Louisa "Lou" Clark (Emilia Clarke), a 26-year-old happy-go-lucky woman who has been trying to find the right job to support her working-class family. That is until she unexpectedly finds one by working as a caregiver to Will Traynor (Sam Claflin). Will was "The Man", that guy who had everything at the palm of his hands until an motorcycle accident left him an quadriplegic. Now he's sarcastic, bitter, moody and thinking of really dark thoughts. How did his heart turn to ice? Anyway, Lou refuses to be put off by a man who lost everything and gave his friends and everybody, as Lou calls it, "the (crappy) treatment". Suddenly, it starts off being an antagonistic relationship to a rather healthy one as Lou, with the help of her sister, Treena (Jenna Coleman), tries to help Will understand that life is definitely worth living for. And, yes, they do start to fall for one another, until Will has that secret that could end it all. I like the movie, but I do have a couple of minor problems: The first one is that the movie is not exactly as deep and sometimes dark as the book was. However, I give it points for letting the book and the movie asks the two questions: "Can you fall in love with a person but disagree on what their opinion of life is?" and "Can that same person change your life, even when it's least expected?" The second one is that first-time feature film director Thea Sharrock moves the film a little too fast without giving us a moment to understand Will's plight and Lou's cheerful earnestness while trying to get to the best parts of the story. But those problems did wash away with the help of Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin. Clarke, best known as the Mother of Dragons on "Game of Thrones", should've been a breakout movie star with that last Terminator movie. Here, that title suits Clarke well as the character of the quick-witted but sometimes vulnerable Lou. Claflin, in his first movie outside of "The Hunger Games" series, has the most challenging role, so far. But he is remarkable as the stubborn but sincere Will. Their chemistry together is amazing. The supporting cast is also good too, with Janet McTeer and Charles Dance (also from "Game of Thrones") as Will's parents who are constantly worried about him and his safety, Stephen Peacocke as Will's nurse, Nathan, Matthew Lewis (Hello, Neville Longbottom) as Lou's boyfriend who is completely uncomfortable about Lou's job, Brendan Coyle and Samantha Spiro as Lou's parents and there's also a really funny cameo from the "absolutely fabulous" Joanna Lumley. Credit must be given to Jojo Moyes, who adapted her terrific book to the screen (she also wrote the sequel book "After You") with some witty dialogue, tender emotion and sometimes dealing with real themes, although it's not as deep as the book. "Me Before You" is a simple story, sure. But while it probably won't be in my top 5 of the best love stories ever, I still found it to be in the same old tradition of tearjerkers, the one where you laugh, you cry and you'll come out feeling good. By the way, it's a lot better than "The Choice".