General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Go Now

Go Now is a 1995 British television drama directed by Michael Winterbottom, written by Jimmy McGovern and Paul Henry Powell, and starring Robert Carlyle as a young Scottish plasterer in Bristol whose life is upended by a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS). It was first broadcast on BBC2 on 16 September 1995 as part of the Love Bites single-drama series, and later received a limited theatrical release in the United Kingdom and abroad, including a 1998 US release by Gramercy Pictures.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
First broadcast	16 September 1995 on BBC2, as part of the Love Bites drama series²^•³
Director and writers	Michael Winterbottom; screenplay by Jimmy McGovern and Paul Henry Powell¹
Basis	Partly based on co-writer Paul Henry Powell's own experiences of living with MS⁴
Lead cast	Robert Carlyle (Nick Cameron), Juliet Aubrey (Karen Walker), James Nesbitt (Tony), Sophie Okonedo (Paula)¹
Runtime and rating	81 minutes; rated R in the United States³^•⁵
Awards	BAFTA for Best Editing; Royal Television Society Best Writer award shared by McGovern and Powell; Winterbottom's second Prix Europa⁶^•⁷
US theatrical run	Released by Gramercy Pictures in 1998; worldwide gross $25,695³
Critical scores	56% on the Tomatometer (9 reviews) and 74% on the Popcornmeter⁵

Spoilers

Story and approach

Nick Cameron is a construction worker and amateur footballer living in Bristol. He meets Karen Walker in a pub on a night out with his weekend soccer mates, and the two fall in love and move in together. Only then does his illness begin to assert itself: numbness in his hands, double vision, and loss of bladder control, followed by a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. As the disease progresses, Nick loses the ability to play soccer or be intimate with Karen, and eventually uses a wheelchair.⁵^•¹⁰

Critics repeatedly singled out the film's refusal of the conventions of the "disease-of-the-week" television movie. Winterbottom spends the first half establishing Nick's life and relationships before the illness appears, and once the diagnosis arrives the film does not explain what MS is or how it is treated; it concentrates instead on the disease's effects on Nick and on his healthy partner. Reviewers noted the film's lowbrow humor, its occasional black-and-white freeze-frames with amusing captions, and its depiction of Nick lashing out at Karen in frustration and self-pity, with his moodiness straining the relationship.¹⁰^•¹¹

Robert Carlyle prepared for the role by spending time watching and conversing with patients at MS centers in Bristol and Glasgow, research he described as more extensive than for any previous role in his career.²

Origins

The film grew out of a writers' workshop that Jimmy McGovern, the creator of the television series Cracker, ran in 1990. Paul Henry Powell, who has MS, attended the workshop and presented McGovern with his diary, which became the seed of the screenplay five years later. Powell said that all the events in the film are based on things that really happened to him.⁸

Producer Andrew Eaton and director Michael Winterbottom had just worked together on the BBC drama serial Family and set up their own production company, Revolution Films. A script editor at the BBC, Roxie Spencer, gave them Powell and McGovern's script, and David Thompson, head of BBC Films, agreed to finance it. Go Now was the production debut of Revolution Films.⁶^•⁹

Reception and later use

The film premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival before screening at Toronto and Venice, winning Revolution Films its second Prix Europa in Berlin and a British Academy Award; the Prix Europa was Winterbottom's second.¹²^•⁷ It won a BAFTA for Best Editing, and McGovern and Powell shared the Royal Television Society's Best Writer award.⁶ Its US theatrical release came only after Jude and Welcome to Sarajevo had made Winterbottom's name with American audiences.¹¹

On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 56% Tomatometer from 9 critics and a 74% audience score.⁵ James Berardinelli of Reelviews gave it 3.5 of 4 stars, calling the acting superlative and praising the film's blunt look at how illness can erode a loving relationship.¹⁰ The San Francisco Chronicle's Mick LaSalle found the appeal elusive but judged that the film succeeds on its own terms as an honest story about an average man who gets MS.¹³

Portrayal of multiple sclerosis

A 2008 review of MS in film by Axel Karenberg, a historian of medicine, cataloged 23 films with an MS theme between 1941 and 2006 and used Go Now as an example of films in which MS features centrally: the principal character suffers initially from a useless hand, increasing numbness, and blurred and double vision, joined later by spastic-ataxic gait, vegetative disorders, and finally massive palsy. The review found that dramas generally strove for accurate to less-than-accurate representation of symptoms.¹⁴

The film has also been used in medical education. A chapter by Timothy Krahn of Dalhousie University uses the film's depiction of Nick's confusing diagnostic journey, in which his family doctor initially attributes his double vision to a trapped nerve, to discuss open disclosure by physicians and the management of relationships with patients undergoing MS diagnosis.¹⁵ Another academic study argued that the film shows the potential for masculinity to facilitate health-promoting behaviors and for popular film to carry public health messages about men's health.²

The film is named for the Moody Blues song "Go Now"; on Nick and Karen's first date in the film they watch True Lies and play a piano duet of the song.¹⁶^•¹⁷ It is currently available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the United States.¹⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Television films

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?