Thea Sharrock, the director of the highly controversial film Me Before You has come out and defended the film from activists’ claims that the film is a ‘disability snuff film’.
The film features Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke as a young women who has been hired to assist the disabled Will Traynor (played by the The Riot Club’s Sam Calfin). Controversy has been arising from the fact that – spoilers alert – Sam wishes to undertake euthanasia due to his depression that he can no longer participate the sport that he loves and to end his loved ones’ constant worry of him.
Activists therefore claim that the film promotes the idea that the only way to ‘cure’ the ‘problem of disability’, is through death.
Sharrock denies these comments however, stating that this reading of the film is a ‘fundamental misunderstanding of what the message is. It’s a fictional story about how important the right to choose is. The message of the film is to live boldly, push yourself, don’t settle.’
‘I have no problem with people seeing this film and not liking it for 101 different reasons; you go into every project with that as a possibility,” Sharrock also states. “I understood going into it how vulnerable a topic it is and susceptible to very strong opinions. It has big themes in it that are very easy to make quick judgements on.’
Words by Juliette Rowsell