Review: Never Let Me Go

Because I keep up with the careers of so many British actors, I invariably hear about movies before I discover their release plans for the United States. Some movies open nationwide, some are limited to New York and Los Angeles, and some fall under the radar completely. Never Let Me Go was given a limited released last year, but I was absolutely convinced that it would gain some Oscar nominations and gain a wider release. Unfortunately, this wonderful movie disappeared almost completely after a half-hearted attempt to promote it, and I just now had the opportunity to watch it.

Based on a highly-acclaimed novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (that is on my reading list), I had heard mixed reviews about the film adaptation. Some people loved the movie while others argued that it failed to capture the spirit of the novel. I decided it would be best to watch the movie before I read the book, and that was completely the right decision. I went into the movie knowing practically nothing about the plot, except that it dealt with cloning humans and that the ending was not a happy one. Since I didn't spend the entire movie comparing it to the book (which invariably happens when I switch the order around), I was able to appreciate the film and the story on their own merits.

Set in an alternate universe where medical science has decided to clone sick humans in order to harvest their healthy organs, Never Let Me Go follows three "donors" over the span of twenty years. One thing I loved about the story was how the children knew exactly as much as the audience about the world they lived in and the fate they had to accept; that is, they knew nothing in the beginning and our understanding grew only when theirs did. I also appreciate books and films that can fall into a variety of genre. Never Let Me Go can be described as a tragic love story, a coming-of-age story, a science fiction story, a cautionary dystopian story, etc.

Besides telling the finite story of three clones, Never Let Me Go forces the audience to contemplate current medical practices and their moral complications. Cloning humans isn't a moral quandry that society has been forced to face quite yet, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility in the near future. If and when it does arise, then the most glaring question to be discussed is the one presented by Ishiguro; namely, are clones any less human than their "originals," or do they have their own unique soul? However, plenty of parallels can be made regarding euthanasia, stem cell research, and other recent medical developments.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - So many things worked in this film, from the acting to the setting, and I genuinely felt like I was watching another society instead of my own. My only problem was that the friendship between the three children felt unnatural, and there were very few moments where I understood why they were such good friends. This was probably more of a failing on the part of the screenplay than the novel (and building relationships is a common enough problem with 90-minute movies), but I have to admit that Keira Knightly felt out of place.