Ever since the heart-wrenching and controversial love story Me Before You was released in theaters nation-wide on June 3rd, it has been eliciting passionate responses from moviegoers and stirring up heated debates over the painful issue of assisted suicide. Despite the increasing popularity of assisted suicide as a supposed means of “helping” aged or terminally ill individuals to end their suffering, most Christians (including myself) believe that it is morally wrong for doctors to dictate when a patient’s life should end. In light of this belief, many religious moviegoers are vehemently protesting Me Before You, claiming that its message condones and even encourages assisted suicide and devalues the lives of sick and disabled people.
However, I have to wonder if the people spewing these outraged criticisms have actually seen the movie. I went to see it in theaters on opening night, and in my opinion (and the opinions of many others as well), Me Before You does not take a positive stance towards human euthanasia. In fact, it doesn’t take any definitive stance at all. Instead, the views of Jojo Moyes, who wrote the screenplay as well as authoring the novel that inspired the movie, remain ambiguous. She presents both sides of the assisted-suicide argument, taking time to explore with heartbreaking empathy both the despair of the person who desires to die and the pain that his decision causes in the lives of the people who love him. Moyes’ story is not pro-euthanasia propaganda, but rather an unflinching look at the reality of suffering and the different ways that people cope (or fail to cope) with its existence in their lives. The message of Me Before You is not “When life is hard, death is okay.” Its message is “Life is hard, and sometimes there are no easy answers.”
As Christians, we should be willing to acknowledge the truth of this message and its relevance in a secular world that lacks our foundation of God-given hope and peace.
Will Traynor, the character in Me Before You who is paralyzed from the neck down after a motorcycle accident and ultimately chooses to end his own life rather than to live with his disability, makes this choice because he believes that life as a quadriplegic is useless. He chooses death not because he believes he is making some sort of noble self-sacrifice, but because it seems to him to be the easiest path to take. He gives up on life because he has first given into despair. He’s so focused on mourning for his old life that he won’t allow himself to be happy in the life he has now. He is too caught up in what he has lost to realize the potential of what he still has. Even though Louisa, his caregiver-turned-friend-turned-love-interest, has brought happiness and beauty back into his life, he is not satisfied. He says to Lou, “I get that this could be a good life, but it’s not my life,” illustrating the extent of his own refusal to accept that his life still holds meaning and purpose, despite its limitations and difficulties. Because he is a different person than he used to be, he feels that he is less of a person than he used to be, and this lie creates a despair in him so powerful that it blinds him to the love and hope that stand at his doorstep, begging to be seen.
As someone who has experienced the unconditional love of Jesus Christ, who rests securely in the promise of spending an eternity in heaven, and who believes with all my heart that God has a plan and a purpose for every single human life, it is difficult for me to understand Will’s position. To me, his choice to end his life, his stubborn refusal to open his eyes and see the potential for joy in his present, and his rejection of the pure and unconditional love that Lou offers him as not enough reason to live seem almost incomprehensible in their short-sightedness and incredible egotism. Until I watched Me Before You, it never even crossed my mind that someone with so much before them would choose to turn their face to the wall and die. That’s why this movie is so important. Because whether I want to believe it or not, that level of despair really does exist—it exists when people are faced with more than they can bear on their own, and they know of no God to hold them up and make their burden light. Will’s despair is the despair of a dying world that is blind to the Hope and the Life being offered to it. And it is crucial that we as Christians acknowledge the reality of that despair and the pain that it brings into the lives of everyone it touches.
People like Will are all around us, and they are hurting. They need the hope and purpose that we have in Christ. So let's offer it to them.
Will’s side of the story isn’t the only one, though. There is also Lou, a character overflowing with life and love and hope. She is not a literal Christian—the movie doesn't portray her as having any specific religious leanings—but she certainly represents traits that we as Christians cherish. For Lou, there is no question that suicide, assisted or otherwise, is wrong, and her mission throughout the entire movie is to convince Will that his life is worth saving. One of the most beautiful aspects of the story is that she begins this “rescue mission” before she even has feelings for him—her love for him grows as they grow closer, but her motivation for saving him is simply that she values life and believes that it should not be arbitrarily ended.
Even from her first encounters with Will, it is clear that Louisa does not think of him as any less of a person than anyone else. To her, he is always himself. His disability makes his life difficult, but it does not make it less valid or valuable. Lou believes this so strongly that she gives him her heart without a backward glance, willingly placing her happiness and her future in his hands, not caring in the least that those hands are paralyzed. When she learns that she has failed in her attempts to convince him to choose life, she shouts at him through her tears, telling him that he is making the most selfish choice possible. This raw moment of heartbreak and honesty is one of several scenes that prove that Me Before You does not glorify euthanasia. Lou deeply believes that Will’s choice is wrong, and although she continues to selflessly love him until the very end, she never supports his decision.
The closest that Me Before You gets to choosing a side in the assisted-suicide debate is showing us a glimpse of the future that Lou imagines for herself and Will, just to have it ripped away by his determination to end his life. It's a heavy blow, and it hits us hard. Why? We wonder, as we watch tears stream down Lou's face. Why does he believe that his life isn't good enough? What would it take to convince him to keep living? Why can't he see his life the way that she sees it? With all of this before him, why does he choose death? The movie doesn't answer those questions, and its silence leaves us both unsettled and deeply unsatisfied with Will's death.
Wouldn't a story that supports euthanasia at least try to leave us feeling good about the choice?
That question, like all the questions presented throughout the film, is left up for debate.
In short, Me Before You is not a simple movie. It tackles messy, complex topics. It forces us to face harsh realities. It asks difficult questions that have no easy answers. But it is a movie worth watching, because it challenges us to look at humanity in both its light and its darkness, to see the value of life while acknowledging its confusion and pain. It shows the immense power of the choices we make—whether for good or for bad. It refuses to takes sides and forces us to think for ourselves. And ultimately, it gives us a better understanding of how to reach out to a hurting world with the love and hope that we have found in Jesus Christ.
