Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek, 2010)

[Jeff]

I liked it a lot more than Romanek's One Hour Photo, but was perhaps a little disappointed overall. For some reason, I had a hard time buying into the story's central conceit (which is probably more my problem than the film's), and that kept me from connecting with it emotionally, which I think is absolutely essential for this particular piece. Carey Mulligan was wonderful again, and the kid who played the younger version of her was absolutely perfect for the role. I can't fault Romanek. His tone was perfect throughout, with the possible exception of the aforementioned Andrew Garfield screaming bit. Rachel Portman's score is my favorite so far this year.

[Kellen]

I liked it a lot more than Romanek's One Hour Photo, but was perhaps a little disappointed overall. For some reason, I had a hard time buying into the story's central conceit (which is probably more my problem than the film's), and that kept me from connecting with it emotionally, which I think is absolutely essential for this particular piece. Carey Mulligan was wonderful again, and the kid who played the younger version of her was absolutely perfect for the role. I can't fault Romanek. His tone was perfect throughout, with the possible exception of the aforementioned Andrew Garfield screaming bit. Rachel Portman's score is my favorite so far this year.

Agree with you on the score by Portman, it was one of my favorite parts of the film.

[Finch]

3 out of 5 from the Guardian: "too tasteful to be scary and too contrived to be tragic"

[Grand Illusion]

As the film opened, it really put its hooks into me. The sense of mystery, even knowing the conceit, and the sense of dread build well. And then... the actual plot happened.

The actual plot is not about the fate of these students or their acceptance/rejection of that fate. The actual plot is about a love triangle. And thus, the increasing tone of suspense dissipates. The interesting details of the world and the discovery left to the viewer are abandoned. This is so that Romanek and his screenwriter Alex Garland (also co-producing) can barrel through three separate decades in a studio-clean running time of just over an hour and a half.

The worst part of this forced triangle is a plot hole so large that they could've floated the whole of England through it:

Spoiler

The three characters are Ruth, Kathy, and Tommy. Kathy, the narrator and perspective of the film, likes Tommy in grade school. Ruth then kisses Tommy, and the two have a ten-year-plus relationship, including the loss of both their virginities and beyond. Later, in their thirties, Ruth confesses that she stole Tommy out of jealousy. Ruth states that Kathy and Tommy should really be together because their love is True (TM).

Ostensibly, we should have a good laugh about this. Most importantly, Ruth isn't a psychic brainwasher. Tommy has free will. If he actually had True Love for Kathy, I dunno, maybe he could've never gotten together with Ruth, broken up with Ruth, had some sort of relationship with Kathy, or any other signifier for such a thing. Also, any signs that such love existed were shown when the characters were 10.

The problem here is that the film (with Kathy as its narrator) is demonstrating a classic folly. The film is taking the romantic standpoint that The One Person that we have a crush on actually loves us, despite all demonstrable evidence. We all want to believe that if we love a girl/boy with all our heart, then, even if they're with someone else, they really love us. That's just not the way reality works, especially when the evidence proves otherwise.

But the film says that it doesn't matter if Tommy had a ten-year relationship with Ruth and never acted on anything for Kathy. In order to keep the narrative gears turning, Tommy suddenly decides to love Kathy. The film careens off its supposedly "subdued" path when it chooses romanticism over actual character motivation.

Worse, this then takes us to our next plot point: that, possibly, two people in True Love (TM) can get an extension on their shortened lifespans. So Tommy and Kathy are off to see the wizard to file for an extension. When they have to file, the messages all become muddled. Tommy believes that he has to present artwork as proof that he can love. The movie then signifies his artwork as proof that he has a "soul." Why the movie veers off in this cliche clone philosophy, I do not know. And is this meeting really about the Tommy's and Kathy's supposed love? Or is it about their fate, pursuant to getting a life extension? Or about the greater meaning of if they have souls? What should be revelatory is bogged down.

This then leads to the trailer moment in the car, in which Tommy asks Kathy to pull over. He gets out and shouts to the heavens. Again, the messages are muddled. We are meant to fall for this tragic couple, but Tommy isn't screaming for his relationship with Kathy. He's not afraid to lose Kathy. He's afraid to die. And he should be, but the focus of the scene is on their love. A smarter script might even acknowledge that Tommy could be using her "True Love" to try to gain an extension on his own life.

Kathy, as a "carer" who looks after the "donors," also got a death sentence in that scene. She takes this quite well though, only showing how much she loves Tommy with her comforting touch. Of course, she has yet to be forced to give an organ, so her health is in fine shape. In fact, because the rules aren't spelled out, I thought carers didn't have to give organs, only to be surprised instead of affected when Kathy finally gets her notice.

Tommy's lashing out and some of the obscured (not to be confused with subtle) exposition also beg another question. Why is everyone so passive? If Tommy has the energy to scream and flail around, why does everyone accept their fate with the utmost lethargy? Especially when most of the film takes place in rural settings? If your entire existence is on the line, at least give me a reason why you don't take up in one of these farmlands and try your damnedest to live off the land. The film entirely neglects the human survival instinct, and in doing so, makes its characters less than human.

I don't want to be so harsh on a film that mostly has the courage of its bleak convictions. It should be a film I would love. Nonetheless, the film loses its restraint when it has to usher three characters along through an equal amount of decades. While the performances are touching, particularly Carey Mulligan, the treatment of Tommy completely derails the love triangle. I simply lost goodwill towards the characterizations. For a film that favors its characterizations over its allegory, that's death.

[matrixschmatrix]

I liked it a lot more than Romanek's One Hour Photo, but was perhaps a little disappointed overall. For some reason, I had a hard time buying into the story's central conceit (which is probably more my problem than the film's), and that kept me from connecting with it emotionally, which I think is absolutely essential for this particular piece.

Spoiler

To me, the whole cloning for parts thing is in a bad spot between metaphor and science fiction- as a metaphor for people's willingness to consume anyone, even what is essentially an identical twin, out of selfish desire for longevity, and for people's willingness to do awful things to people as long as they can deny them humanity, it's too focused on the clones and not the people harvesting them- it behaves as though it's actually a question whether the clones are fully human, which is absurd (they're as human as any identical twin is, since those are natural clones.)

As science fiction, it seems too messy and poorly thought out- it's much easier to imagine lobotomized bodies stacked like cordwood than the education and generally human treatment the clones do get. It's either too nasty or not nasty enough.

[knives]

Spoiler

As science fiction, it seems too messy and poorly thought out- it's much easier to imagine lobotomized bodies stacked like cordwood than the education and generally human treatment the clones do get. It's either too nasty or not nasty enough.

Spoiler

I'm going to embarrass myself here. That's actually why I like House of the Scorpion. That element of cloning is heavily featured and thought out. We manage to get a legitimate reason for why the lead is not lobotomized. I haven't actually seen the movie yet, but maybe they use a similar excuse to that book. Not lobotomizing these guys is a way of apology or maybe they could have hinted at things in an The Island sort of way that it makes the organs healthier and last longer.

[JonathanM]

I haven't seen the film but I have read the book and I think that passivity is kind of the point.

See also Remains of the Day.

[rs98762001]

Yes, to complain about the passivity of the characters is completely and utterly missing the point. It's not something either Ishiguro or Romanek is expecting the reader/viewer to question. Hence comparisons to things like The Island (not that I'm necessarily seeing those here, but rather in the press in general) are just ridiculous.

[Grand Illusion]

Yes, to complain about the passivity of the characters is completely and utterly missing the point. It's not something either Ishiguro or Romanek is expecting the reader/viewer to question. Hence comparisons to things like The Island (not that I'm necessarily seeing those here, but rather in the press in general) are just ridiculous.

Both completely and utterly? Wow.

Anyway, sure, the author(s) may not expect us to question the characters' passivity, but, alas, we do. Is that their fault for overlooking something that was not in their initial expectations? Or is it our fault for expecting characters to behave like human beings?

(and by "our," I mean, myself and other critics who have commented on this)

[Markson]

Read the book a few years ago, saw the film last night. The film was professionally done, nice-looking, and had some solid (and, occasionally, moving) performances, but I found that it amounted to little more than intermittent moments of interest. Never Let Me Go was identical in structure to the book and provided a literal rendering of the novel's major events, but therein lies the failure, I believe. Ishguro's work is largely not about what "happens," but about the interior lives of the characters. I'm thinking that the only way to get close to his aesthetic here would have been to make a lengthy, meditative, straight-up Tarkovsky-esque adaptation. As it is, when just putting the book's "events" in sequence without trying to replicate the novel's "space" (mood, slowness, depth), much of the book is lost. Ishiguro is enough of a magician to mitigate the premise's silliness, but the film––to me––only highlighted some of the novel's fundamental nonsense and Ishiguro's skill at selling it.

[Murdoch]

Read the book a few years ago, saw the film last night. The film was professionally done, nice-looking, and had some solid (and, occasionally, moving) performances, but I found that it amounted to little more than intermittent moments of interest. Never Let Me Go was identical in structure to the book and provided a literal rendering of the novel's major events, but therein lies the failure, I believe. Ishguro's work is largely not about what "happens," but about the interior lives of the characters. I'm thinking that the only way to get close to his aesthetic here would have been to make a lengthy, meditative, straight-up Tarkovsky-esque adaptation. As it is, when just putting the book's "events" in sequence without trying to replicate the novel's "space" (mood, slowness, depth), much of the book is lost. Ishiguro is enough of a magician to mitigate the premise's silliness, but the film––to me––only highlighted some of the novel's fundamental nonsense and Ishiguro's skill at selling it.

I haven't seen this yet (and have become reluctant to do so for fear of exactly what you stated), but I found Lucile Hadzihalilovic's Innocence to have captured the exact feelings I had while reading Ishiguro's novel. The sense of underlying dread combined with the nostalgic imagery of adolescence lost in Hadzihalilovic's film beautifully captured what I found to be the novel's best qualities and the film at times feels like a direct adaptation of Never Let Me Go despite it probably being mere coincidence of themes and subject matter. I'd suggest anyone who read the book to seek it out.