Country:
United Kingdom/USA
Recognizable Faces:
Carey Mulligan
Andrew Garfield
Keira Knightley
Directed By:
Mark Romanek
In the depressing movies department, Never Let Me Go ranks right under Requiem For A Dream, except that the annoying main lead is Andrew Garfield instead of Jared Leto. But it's the only complain I have to make. Mark Romanek succeeded at the tremendous job of adapting Kazuo Ishiguro's most famous novel into a movie. While I have not read Mr. Ishiguro's book, I thought the movie was so good, I don't know how far away from the original it could be. Oh and Mr. Director also achieved to make Keira Knightley look good on screen. In itself, it's even more impressive than adapting material that was already good.
I love it, when writers put the human condition in perspective. Never Let Me Go is about fatality and the moral nature of human beings. Kathy (Mulligan), Tommy (or Horny Tommy as I called him, played by Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Knightley) are clones, raised in the special school of Hailsham. The sole purpose of their lives is to have their vital organs harvested. Yeah, grim, I know. But the harvesting in question doesn't play a big part. The story follows Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, trying to have a life, knowing what their end will be and being deprived of the casual information that every human being have. The three friends aren't sure how to live and how to make their time on earth count before the inevitable end. In no time they ever think about an escape, since they have been raised this way, the idea of their own end became a part of who they are.
It's hard to look at death in the eyes. Human or clone or whoever you might be, you have to tell yourself stories to justify your right to exist. Ruth, who I thought was the most touching character, fooled herself and Tommy into a relationship, so they can have a deferral from the government and have a few years longer. The deferrals are one of the many stories that have been circulating among the Hailsham students, giving them a glimmer of hope. I'll admit I got teary eyed when Ruth, already without a few of her organs, apologized to Kathy and Tommy, because she kept them separated for the little time they could have lived together. Keira Knightley, for the first time I can remember, let her emotions out and really played something she could be remembered for.
Mark Romanek's direction is beautiful, yet spare. His shots of the three friends in bleak and tormented nature hits home. It's a constant mix or luxuriant forest, representing youth and patched up, dying scenery, representing the kids inevitable fate. I liked how Ishiguro and Romanek have kept their opinions to themselves about any sort of cloning, organ harvesting or other easy subjects like this. Never Let Me Go is the story of young humans facing their imminent mortality and that's what makes it universal. Kathy, Tommy and Ruth could represent any youth facing disease, war or any ill of mankind. It's their panic, their will to live and their sense of fatality we can relate to.
SCORE: 89%
