So these are two films that came out that are about a quadriplegic man who had a great career and life until he has an accident and the relationship he has with his caretaker afterward. 2016 versus 2010 isn’t a bad distance to have between movies. ‘Me before you’ is very much a romantic comedy and ‘Guzaarish’ is a melodrama.
There are 3 main differences with these movies that made me like ‘Me before you’ more even though I usually go for the Bollywood.
1. The main guy character is a straight up bitter jerk in ‘Guzaarish’ and this is Hrithik Roshan! The awesomeness that I love! Yet, I never really sympathize with him. He was a blatant egotistical narcissist before the accident and after he is a woeful guy who is trying to get the government to let him commit suicide. In ‘Me before you’ he is a jerk for a second but that is just armor so he doesn’t get hurt. He was a good guy and businessman before the accident, that doesn’t change. Having that balance of a good guy in a hard situation made more feeling sense then a selfish guy who is still a selfish guy. They show both their hardships but I feel like The English film made it seem more horrifying than the other.
2. The romance is odd in both. There is no real clue in either if what you are seeing is love forming or simply a normal bond of caretaker and patient over time. The difference is that In ‘Me before you’ she is actively fighting to save him from suicide and in ‘Guzaarish’ she isn’t helping but neither is she not helping. It is odd to see both of them fight through their feelings of wanting to help him and wanting to love him.
3. The fact that they keep it so light in ‘Me before you’, it is hard to think that he may actually die at the end of the movie. It is why I decided to see the movie instead of the book just in case he dies. In ‘Guzaarish’ it is so dark, it is hard to not assume that he will die and thus I tried not to get attached. Also a lot of time is spent in the courtroom with the Bolly and the focus is less on their relationship because of it.
This is not a ‘logic’ movie, it is very feelings based, so even though it is basically the same movie, the feelings may make you like one versus the other though. That is th lovely thing about feelings for me, they can be very illogical and yet they are what make us fall for the wrong guy, save a family member at the price of our own life, play all day and night and rush to finish some homework and hour before deadline. Emotions are the spices that make this life so wonderfully unique.
This is one of the most enjoyable part of Guzaarish. The caretaker is serious the entire time and then let’s loose in some of the most random ways.
Ariel Roars 