“Me Before You” is about about a young and adventurous twenty-something, Louisa Clarke, who lives in England with her family, jumping from job to job trying to find one good enough to make ends meet and provide for her family. Louisa is the cheeriest and brightest person around and it just so happens those qualities get her a very good job caregiving for a young and wealthy quadriplegic, Will Trayor.

Will is depressed and has lost the will to live, so over the course of a few months Louisa is put to work by Will’s mother to try to cheer him up and convince him that life is worth living. Louisa tries anything and everything to get him out of his funk while simultaneously falling in love. In the end even though in love, Will makes the decision to end his life leaving Louisa heartbroken but with inner peace knowing she did all she could do.

Yes, I know it sounds sappy, and it is, but it’s the very best kind of sappy that keeps you hanging on to every last word of the book just wanting to know what happens. The book was extremely well written and had me wanting to flip the book over and start reading it again as soon as I finished it.  

Just like most book to movie comparisons, “Me Before You” was better as a book, but for the record it didn’t go down without a fight. While watching the movie I laughed, a lot, and I cried even more. They truly did an amazing job on it, it’s definitely worth a watch. What I think helped the movie be very very similar to the movie is that the author, Jojo Moyes, wrote the screenplay for the movie so a large percent of the lines were direct quotes from the book.

Another plus was the casting job, Emilia Clarke did an outstanding job playing the role of Louisa. I  wouldn’t have picked anyone else to play her but Emilia. I can admit at first I was nervous when I found out Emilia Clarke was playing Louisa because she plays such an authoritative and powerful character as Daenerys Targaryen aka Mother of Dragons on the tv show Game of Thrones, but it was almost like she was a totally different person because Louisa is cheerful and quirky.  I also loved Sam Claflin as Louisa’s employer and love interest, Will Traynor. He was absolutely perfect for the part, same as Emilia, they fit the characters so well. I was extremely impressed.

Being a romance movie I was worried that it would get cheesy or not follow the plot remotely, but once again the writers/directors did an awesome job.

Although the movie deserves a lot of praise, it was missing a few scenes/moments from the book that I noticed, just as any book made movie would. Plus reading a book is just different from watching a movie on a big screen. In a book you can feel and read every detail of their expressions and actions and while the actors certainly did a good job it’s just not the same and it probably never will be.