In the wake of the hit movie, Me Before You, based on the novel by the same name, opinions are circulating. Like with any movie, they vary. Most reviews are positive, with people enjoying the heart-wrenching tale. There are also some negative ones as well. Many seem to think the movie romanticizes disability instead of acknowledging its seriousness. No matter what, an overall theme is the claim that Louisa Clark, one of the two protagonists, is a manic pixie dream girl.
Manic pixie dream girl is a term coined by Nathan Rabin, when reviewing Elizabethtown. The term is essentially to describe the women in films and books who have no substance. They exist solely for the benefit of the male protagonist. Typically they teach them a life lesson, or help them grow without ever seeming to have their own growth of need for a life lesson. Louisa Clark, while she does serve as the teacher in the movie, she is definitely not a manic pixie dream girl.
Will Traynor wants to have a medically assisted suicide because he cannot stand to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Louisa Clark, as his caregiver, needs to teach him not to. Her job is to teach him that life is worth living, even if you are disabled. If Louisa, or Lou, were a manic pixie dream girl she would have succeeded, first of all. At the end of the movie he does wind up doing through with the process, meaning Lou failed. Right off the bat, this is uncharacteristic of a manic pixie dream girl.
Also, manic pixie dream girls meet their men by chance and happen to decide to teach them along the way. Louisa Clark goes to work for Will because she needs to and she is hired because his mother needs her to teach him. She is hired to help him pursue his happiness; she does not choose this life. In fact she does not even want to fill this role. She only works for the Traynors because she needed a job. She wants to quit almost immediately after she begins but only sticks around because her sister needs someone to take of their parents while she goes to school.
Not only is her reasoning for taking on this role the opposite of what a manic pixie dream girl’s reasons would be, her desires are the opposite of a manic pixie dream girl’s as well. A manic pixie dream girl is at the service of the protagonist, she wants him to prosper and to pursue his own happiness. Louisa does not develop the desire to help him see that life is worth living until late in the movie. As soon as she finds out about his plans she wants out. It makes her too sad and she does not approve. Her sister forces her to continue working because they need the money and so she does. A manic pixie dream girl would not want to leave.
Later in the movie she wants him to live. Not because she wants him to pursue his happiness, but because she is pursuing hers. A manic pixie dream girl never puts her happiness over her man’s, but Lou does. She wants him to give up what he wants to do with his life because she is in love with him and does not wan to see him go. She puts herself first and so she is not a manic pixie dream girl.
All signs point away from Lou being a manic pixie dream girl. While this makes her seem like a worse person to some, because of her selfish tendencies. At least she is a round character. At least she embodies a realist, independent woman. At least she has substance.
