Disabled enrich others

No modern film about blacks would feature white actors in black face. Yet a widely released movie, “Me Before You,” which deals with assisted suicide sought by a man with quadriplegia, was neither written, directed nor acted by someone with a severe disability.

This becomes all too evident early in the movie when the lead character, Will, played by Sam Claflin, sarcastically dismisses the idea of joining a “quad support group.” The screenwriter, Jojo Moyes, who adapted the script from her best-selling novel, missed a golden opportunity by not putting more disabled characters in the movie.

I would love to see a group of actual wheelchair users debate the pros and cons of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Such a movie would be thought-provoking.

But summer movies avoid thoughtful plots, and this one is no exception.

Director Thea Sharrock has remade a love story like most other ones and has even thrown in a castle that is wheelchair accessible. If you hate spoilers, stop here.

As the movie opens, Will is a highly successful stockbroker in London with a perfect body for surfing, mountain climbing and other rugged sports. He has a leggy, blond girlfriend. He gets run over by a motorcycle, moves back to the castle and wallows in self-pity.

Next we meet Louisa, played by Emilia Clarke, a 26-year-old perky woman who works in a bakery shop. Then she gets laid off.

Louisa needs a new job to support herself, her parents, sister and nephew. Enter Will.

His mother has her stay with him eight hours a day, six days a week. She does no personal care. She is the companion of Will, meant to cheer him up. He hates her, and she hates him. So, of course, they fall in love, her boyfriend notwithstanding.

She finds out that in a month he will fly to Switzerland to be assisted in killing himself, because he feels life in a wheelchair, after being so active, is just too hard.

Louisa persuades him to go on holiday to a beach resort. They consummate their relationship. But he won’t marry her. He fears one day she will look at him with pity.

That proves no one connected with “Me Before You” bothered meeting people with disabilities in relationships, including actor Christopher Reeves.

The tragedy of Will is not his paralysis. The tragedy is his inability to escape his self-involvement and to see the need of Louisa. It is not the money he bequeaths her; she needs him.

Together, Will and Louisa might have conquered man-made mountains far more challenging than any physical one.

“Me Before You” is a piece of maudlin romance that fails to see that we, no matter how disabled, can be not only enriched by others but truly enrich them.

This story was originally published June 27, 2016 at 12:04 AM with the headline "Disabled enrich others."