Sensitive, uplifting and funny, but also heart-breaking

Rating: 10/10 (13 November 2016)

This romantic film pulls all the heart-strings, and it is impossible not to respond enthusiastically to the overwhelming charm of the young actress Emilia Clarke, who infuses the entire film with her warmth, humour, and quirkiness. Apparently she is well known from GAME OF THRONES, but that kind of thing is 'not my scene' and I would never watch it. So for me this girl is one big delightful surprise. The film is a triumphant first feature film by director Thea Sharrock, best known for her affiliations with William Shakespeare and the wonderful Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. She certainly has a big cinematic career ahead of her, because she has made a film which is so finely directed, sensitive, and well-balanced that any producer with a grain of sense must be chasing her now. The film is also the first written by, as well as based on a novel by, a woman quaintly named Jojo Moyes. It is difficult to imagine a man either writing or directing a film like this, so we are fortunate that women took over and made the movie. Even the producers were women. Well done, gals! Actress Janet McTeer is also excellent, as usual, having now become very much a 'national treasure'. And then there is Sam Claflin (his surname Claflin being a truncated form of the original McLaughlin, abbreviated by a forebear in America, where everything gets shortened). I have already praised Sam Claflin before, for his brilliant performance as the young Logan in the wonderful TV series ANY HUMAN HEART (2010, see my review). Here he is once again brilliant. All that talent in someone who can barely move! Yes, Claflin plays a man who is paralyzed in all his limbs after he is struck by a motorbike in the street. Since this is based on a romantic novel, it is necessary for Claflin to live in a huge castle, which he obligingly does. And it is equally necessary for Emilia Clarke to being a Cinderella figure, which she certainly is, with gusto. She is hired by Claflin's mother, Janet McTeer, to look after Claflin and try to cheer him up, as he sits daily in his electric wheelchair which he can operate with his one hand which has some capability of movement. Meanwhile he has resolved to go to Dignitas in Switzerland and end his life by monitored suicide, and the question arises as to whether Emilia Clarke can stop this, for she eventually falls in love with him. This is where things get difficult for me, because a very dear friend of mine went to Dignitas and allowed his suicide to be filmed for television. He only had two weeks left before his motor neurone disease would render him unable to make the trip, having delayed as long as he dared. His wife sat beside him while he drank the poison. I made a speech at his memorial service. These events are very painful, and tragedies of this kind are nothing to treat lightly. In this film, the matter is handled with great sensitivity, which was not an easy thing to do. I shall not reveal what happens about this in the story because one is not supposed to for IMDb. Also appearing in the film as Claflin's father is Charles Dance, who is very good as usual. I can rarely watch him without wincing slightly at my recollections of his ex-wife at Crickleaze trying to knock me out during her boxing practise in the middle of their drawing room. One takes risks sometimes visiting people and trying to be an obliging guest. This film too involves some risk for viewers, who may need a 'safe space', because of its 'beautiful sadness'. But it is a marvellous success, and a very fine film indeed.