YMMV / Me Before You

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • How much sympathy does Patrick deserve? He complains when Lou is admittedly neglecting him - and he is right to be annoyed that she's spending so much time with Will. Because she's going on things that are explicitly dates, and passing them off as work. On the other hand, he didn't pay her much attention beforehand - so it's a tad hypocritical of him to complain when Lou neglects him.
  • With regards to Lou's falling for Will. Exactly how much of it is merely because she wouldn't want anyone to die or because she's already fallen for him? Or was it the former but she came to love him eventually?
  • Are Will's ex and his best friend jerks who ditched him for each other or two people who finally and sadly gave up on him after being rejected multiple times and eventually found comfort in each other? Given that she explicitly tells Lou "I tried for months. He just pushed me away, didn't want me here. . .", it seems very likely to be the second scenario.
    • This gets expanded on at the wedding, when her aunt denounces her new husband as an "asshole". She might have been genuinely heartbroken by his accident and their subsequent breakup, but he might very well be an opportunistic jerk who seized the chance to swoop in on a vulnerable woman following a tragedy.
• Broken Base:
  • The disabled community had quite a bit of issues with the movie, especially with the fact that while the tagline and promotional material are all about 'Live Boldly' in the end this is supposed to apply only to the abled protagonist, and Will bequeathing the bank account that allows Lou to 'live boldly' sends the message that disabled people should be selfless enough to remove themselves from life so as to unburden their abled relatives and loved ones. The movie has caught considerably more heat than the book for removing subplots that hinted to the reasons Will wanted to go to Dignitas and a scene where Lou visited an online forum for quadriplegic where more than the 'quadriplegic life is worse than death' point of view was shared, making the idea that Will's was a personal choice a bit more understandable.
  • On the other hand, there are also those in the disabled community who feel that Will's decision with Dignitas is understandable due to the amount of pain that he is in and that he made the decision because of how much his disability was affecting himself, not the people around him. Further supporting this viewpoint is that the movie doesn't touch on his parents' difficulties with the disability; they've clearly found ways to cope and their conflict comes from trying to stop their son from committing suicide.
• Jerkass Woobie: Will is a pretty big jerk at the start of the film, and does his best to make Lou's time with him unbearable. But it's completely understandable. And the Woobie part comes to the forefront as the movie progresses and he softens towards Lou.
• Narm Charm: Lou's singing. It's so cringey it's absolutely adorable. Will has a similar reaction.
• One-Scene Wonder: Joanna Lumley as a guest at the wedding Will and Lou attend.
• She Really Can Act: A variation. Emilia Clarke's performance in Game of Thrones was well-received, but the failure of Terminator Genisys let to many feeling that she would be a one hit wonder - typecast as Action Girls forever. Here she went completely against type in a romantic drama, showing that she could play a different role and not be forever known as Daenerys.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Will's ex and his friend. We're clearly supposed to hate them for hooking up, but it's not like she ditched him the minute he got hurt. She points out that he relentlessly pushed her away and rebuffed all her efforts to be there for him. Her moving on was inevitable and you can't really fault them for eventually turning to each other—obviously, their efforts to comfort each other turned into something more—she outright says that they've been friends for ages and that he was a great support to her after the accident.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Louisa's parents come off this way considering that they are both unemployed, leaving their daughters to try and support the family since Louisa's father lost his job, but considering that we never actually see either of them looking for work, unlike Louisa, they come off as lazy by mooching off their daughters, who have had to take it in turns to pick up their slack. Not to mention Bernard has a Kick the Dog moment towards Katrina when, after the mother calls Katrina the clever one, he mutters, "Not clever enough not to get herself up the duff, though". And Louisa's mother comes off as shrill and sanctimonious when hearing about Will's decision to die, acting like he's mentally ill and accusing his parents of basically abetting murder, showing no sympathy towards the horrible pain that Will is in or respecting the fact that not everybody holds the same beliefs as she does. That it's her last scene in the movie doesn't help.

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