Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro's novels are atmospheric, penetrating, deeply felt; director Mark Romanek has made music videos for Nine Inch Nails, Audioslave, and Johnny Cash, among others; he was also the creative vision at the helm of the film One Hour Photo. Put them together and the resulting film adaptation of Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go is the result.

Romanek is an American, but he has an eye and a feel for England as we know it from countless old BBC imports: the cold, the tatty, second-hand feel of the clothing and architecture, the close-to-the vest mannerisms of the people. He's said to be inspired, as a filmmaker, by Stanley Kubrick, and it's credible enough: Romanek, like Kubrick, understands that fear and passion sometimes make the heart beat slower, rather than faster, and he allows the beats of his film to proceed at a restrained pace. Underneath, however, there's something fast and fierce kicking to get out.

The plot concerns a trio of young people, and the lifelong love triangle they form. Tommy is an unpopular boy who has no talent for athletics and an unusual eye for art. Kathy is the quiet, collected, bright girl who loves him. Ruth is the fearful one who buries her anxiety under a veneer of attitude, but schemes to become Tommy's girlfriend knowing that Kathy will never abandon him--and, therefore, never abandon her, either. The three children go to a special boarding school called Hallsham, where the pupils are looked after with something more than the usual sharp-eyed concern. As explained by headmistress Charlotte Rampling--wonderful and not a little Thatcherish in the role--Hallsham students are extra-special. They dare not venture beyond the estate's fence, or sneak cigarettes. They must be kept whole and healthy at all costs.

The reason for this, we come to understand, is that the students at Haversham are the result of science--they have been cloned, or genetically engineered, for the purpose of organ harvesting. Their sacrifice has brought an end to many human diseases, and eradicated human suffering... but only if their own suffering is discounted, which society at large is only too happy to do. These artificially created young people are not seen as human beings in their own right: they are simply walking collections of spare parts, and the question of whether they have souls, or should have human rights, is scarcely addressed.

Not that any of these political and moral questions are spelled out in capital letters in the film. That's the film's strong point, and the most heartbreaking thing about it: whereas in an American setting there would be a courageous, charismatic leader, an underground resistance, and a revolt (complete with fiery explosions and chase scenes), the people in Never Let Me Go don't think to rebel, or even to question the system much. Kathy grows up to be played by actress Carey Mulligan, and she's even better here than she was in An Education; she's an amazing mix of naivete and resourcefulness, but she's not Sigourney Weaver strapping on automatic weapons and setting out to do battle. Whether Ishiguro meant it as a comment of general human sheepishness or a more particular stripe of British stiff-upper-lipness, Kathy and her cohort--Ruth being played by Keira Knightley, and Tommy by Andrew Garfield--are polite and subservient, even though they are being prepared for a literal devouring.

The one hope that Tommy and Kathy have is to apply for a special deferment they've heard rumors about. The scuttlebutt is that the deferment is granted in exceptional cases where two people are in love. The exemption, if they can secure it, will postpone their organ "donations" for a few years and give them a chance at a brief life together. To pursue this deferment, though, they first need to overcome their reticence and connect with (or at least lay claim to) one another--and that, as lovers in literature have demonstrated again and again, is easier yearned for than done.

This movie belongs to a class of smart, grimy, British sci-fi that forsakes high tech eye candy for vintage movie virtues. Children of Men was a movie like this--it's the only recent film that springs to mind as a comparison, aside from the American movie The Island (similar concept, but execution so different that it's really a different genre). Hope, love, confusion, rumor and anecdote taken for truth, and grim reality hanging over everything: by the time Kathy wonders aloud whether her life and the lives of her friends are so very different from anyone else's, we've figured out on a gut level that this is the movie's point. It's well made, and well taken.