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“Me Before You” Film panned by Not Dead Yet UK

The latest blockbuster to come out of Hollywood called ‘Me Before You’ is seen as a gross misrepresentation of the lived experience of most disabled people. The film is based on the best-selling novel of the same name.  A young man becomes disabled, he falls in love with his ‘carer’ and they have a fantastic year together but despite her protests, he decides to end his life at Dignitas so she can move on and he is no longer a burden to her.

A critique of the book by Crippled Scholar can be found at http://bit.ly/25bbRf6

Not Dead Yet UK is deeply concerned to see yet another film which casts non-disabled people as disabled people and shows the lives of disabled people as not worth living.

The film premiered at the Curzon in Mayfair at 7pm on the 25th May.

Further coverage of the protest and concerns around the film:

This film did not raise the issue of medication intake and cost of medication.

12 replies on ““Me Before You” Film panned by Not Dead Yet UK”

A movie like this is extremely upsetting. There are some doctors and hospice nurses who use their influence on families to end their loved one’s life. Some medical professionals have taken over God’s role. God is the giver and taker of life, not man. We should respect the physically challenged and support their right to life. We should encourage life!!

I listened to the audio book and found it very moving. It does NOT state that disabled people better off dead – certainly not!! I have no idea how someone can jump to that conclusion – he or she must not have read it at all. It is a conflict throughout the book between the wish of the disabled person and the wish of the caretaker, who wants him to see all that life has to bring and to offer.
This person is extremely disabled, with a condition of a progressive nature, with the implication that he can expect a lot of pain in the foreseeable future. His decision to end his life was duly motivated and a very personal choice. It had NOTHING to do with him not being a burden to her; who thought of that??
The decision had been made before he even met her and she was no factor in this. That is a downright misrepresentation of the plot.

If anything, this movie makes you aware of how life can change in a split second; how dependent disabled people are and how non-disabled people are reacting to disabled people.
WIthout giving too much away, there is a great analogy between the disabled man and the caretaker: he is confined to his wheelchair, she has her own issues which confine her to a specific place and routine.
Beautiful book. Have listened to three more of this author.
I can’t speak for the movie version, but please READ the book.
Although I can imagine that if you are anti-assisted-suicide for terminal patients or patients with horrific prospects, you will not like it either way.

I completely disagree with everything said in this article. Neither the film and book are saying that every disabled person should end their lives and that they are burdens on their loved ones and careers. This was simply just Will’s personal opinion and how he wanted to go about the rest of his life. If you go back and watch interviews Sam Claflin has done, after the filming of the movie and reading the book. He states multiple time that’s the movie isn’t about that but instead opening the views eyes into this completely different world that many will never see and how it has given him so much more respect and awareness. Claflin also states numerous times that this was just what Will wanted to do, not what Moyes thinks people should do.

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