Me Before You
I went to see the movie Me Before You last week with a friend. She and I were both born with the same birth defect causing us to be born paraplegics.
The movie is about a man Will who is hit by a motorcycle leaving him a quadriplegic. Louisa or Lou is hired two years after Will’s accident to be his caregiver. Her job as she’s told is mostly keeping him company. He has a nurse who takes care of his personal needs.
The movie is based on a book of the same title. The author Jojo Moyes, who is able bodied, from what I read never spoke to a quadriplegic person.
The movie is entirely from Lou’s point of view. Lou is from a working class family and her father is out of work so the family needs the income. Lou hasn’t had many experiences. She has a boyfriend who is a real narcissist.
Will comes from a very wealthy family. He was very physically active before his accident and can’t conceive of living a life without fully being able to do all the things he wants to do.
Lou later learns that she was hired by Will’s mother to basically be on suicide watch. Will had promised his parents he would not pursue assisted suicide for six months in the hopes they could change his mind.
When I first saw a trailer for this movie my first thought was excitement to see a movie that was a love story involving a disabled person. My elation was swiftly undercut by the realization that Will was going to die at the end of the movie. I realized this movie was really about Lou and what Will’s presence in her life would do for her.
Throughout the movie there was this continuing message of living boldly. Will existed to push Lou into living her life boldly. In the end Will provided Lou the funds to begin a new life living boldly.
I realize there are people in the world who do commit suicide after having an accident that leaves the paralyzed. But there are also people who continue on to live to find reasons to live. The problem is there are far too many representations in movies of the former than the latter.
The movie Me Before You is Lou’s story not Will’s. We learn very little of what is going on in his mind. He just doesn’t want to live his life without the ability to do all the things he used to do. We see no exploration of him receiving counseling. We see no alternative examples of other quadriplegics who chose to live despite their disability. Will is so isolated from anything everything else.
Just because the movie didn’t explicitly state ‘if you have a disability life isn’t worth living’ doesn’t mean that’s not a message that was coming through. As a paraplegic I have seen people in shows or movies as background treated as something to be pitied or some sexless lump.
I’m going to post this and if anyone who reads this has any questions I’ll be happy to try and answer. Hopefully this didn’t come across as just a big rambling mess.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll post about the French 2012 movie The Intouchables about a quadriplegic and his caregiver with a very different perspective.
The movie is about a man Will who is hit by a motorcycle leaving him a quadriplegic. Louisa or Lou is hired two years after Will’s accident to be his caregiver. Her job as she’s told is mostly keeping him company. He has a nurse who takes care of his personal needs.
The movie is based on a book of the same title. The author Jojo Moyes, who is able bodied, from what I read never spoke to a quadriplegic person.
The movie is entirely from Lou’s point of view. Lou is from a working class family and her father is out of work so the family needs the income. Lou hasn’t had many experiences. She has a boyfriend who is a real narcissist.
Will comes from a very wealthy family. He was very physically active before his accident and can’t conceive of living a life without fully being able to do all the things he wants to do.
Lou later learns that she was hired by Will’s mother to basically be on suicide watch. Will had promised his parents he would not pursue assisted suicide for six months in the hopes they could change his mind.
When I first saw a trailer for this movie my first thought was excitement to see a movie that was a love story involving a disabled person. My elation was swiftly undercut by the realization that Will was going to die at the end of the movie. I realized this movie was really about Lou and what Will’s presence in her life would do for her.
Throughout the movie there was this continuing message of living boldly. Will existed to push Lou into living her life boldly. In the end Will provided Lou the funds to begin a new life living boldly.
I realize there are people in the world who do commit suicide after having an accident that leaves the paralyzed. But there are also people who continue on to live to find reasons to live. The problem is there are far too many representations in movies of the former than the latter.
The movie Me Before You is Lou’s story not Will’s. We learn very little of what is going on in his mind. He just doesn’t want to live his life without the ability to do all the things he used to do. We see no exploration of him receiving counseling. We see no alternative examples of other quadriplegics who chose to live despite their disability. Will is so isolated from anything everything else.
Just because the movie didn’t explicitly state ‘if you have a disability life isn’t worth living’ doesn’t mean that’s not a message that was coming through. As a paraplegic I have seen people in shows or movies as background treated as something to be pitied or some sexless lump.
I’m going to post this and if anyone who reads this has any questions I’ll be happy to try and answer. Hopefully this didn’t come across as just a big rambling mess.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll post about the French 2012 movie The Intouchables about a quadriplegic and his caregiver with a very different perspective.