Never Let Me Go

Consider the lowly 1979 film Parts: The Clonus Horror, a movie so bad that it not only starred Dick Sargent (Darren number two from Bewitched), but was mocked by Mystery Science Theater 3000. Yet this repellent little film seems to have spawned two high profile films that have lifted its central premise: clones are raised for the harvesting of organs, so that they can be donated to others. This storyline was used (almost verbatim) in the Michael Bay fiasco, The Island, and now in the tony Mark Romanek feature, based on the novel by Kazuo Ishigura, Never Let Me Go.

Now, I am in no way suggesting that Ishigura had any awareness of Parts, and beyond the central conceit (a bit of science fiction that I'm sure our least ethical scientists are feverishly endeavoring to make science fact) the plots are not similar. But Never Let Me Go, in its own way, is not much better than The Island, just for entirely different reasons.

I bring up these earlier films because they are instructive as to how Hollywood and non-Hollywood (Ishigura is Japanese-British, screenwriter Alex Garland is British, though Romanek is American) minds approach the situation differently. The Island, and its progenitor, Parts, is all about resistance and rebellion. If you found out you were just a fatted calf, and your whole existence was to be on call to have your vital organs appropriated for someone else's use, what would you do? In American films, you escape, you fight back. In Never Let Me Go, you look meaningfully into the distance, and your best hope is that falling in love can buy you an extra couple of years.

Never Let Me Go centers on three characters, who are children together in an old-fashioned boarding school. We are told at the outset that most disease has been eradicated, and that the life expectancy is over 100 years. The children, who seem to have no parents, are frightened into remaining on school grounds by spooky stories. A new teacher, Sally Hawkins, is like an embedded spoiler, and she tells the kids their purpose--and their limitations.

Hawkins is never seen again for disobeying protocol, but the kids grow up to be Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield. They know their purpose, but are seemingly powerless to do anything about it (a few times they are shown passing electric wristbands by monitors--presumably this is how they are kept from escaping). They are allowed some freedom--they can drive, and they also have sex, which I would think would be frowned upon (unless of course clones can't have children) and they meekly await their fate. Mulligan is in love with Garfield, always has been, but Knightley has moved in to grab him.

This is basically it. We are doled out information spoonful by spoonful, but I still didn't quite grasp it all. I felt as if I were watching a foreign film without subtitles. The characters talked a lot about who they were "modeled" after--is this who they were cloned from? They also gave multiple donations, presumably until they gave up an organ they couldn't live without. There are too many "presumablys," though. Maybe I'm just too literal-minded, but I needed more answers than I got here. If you're going to make a film that has science-fiction elements, you have to fill in the science.

What ultimately drags down Never Let Me Go is its unyielding solemnity. Granted, it's not a pleasant topic, but these kids never seem to have any fun, aside from paging through porno magazines or watching sit-coms. This film could kill the best mood you've ever had, and take a bad mood and make it suicidal. The trappings of the film are all nice--the acting and the photography is fine, but jeez this film could have used a little lightening up.

The good reviews this film have received seem to be by those who have read the book, which I have not. I would imagine the novel went further into the details of the cloning program and just what went through these characters' heads, which the film can only do by long, baleful scenes of tree limbs swaying. It was almost enough to, god forgive me, long for a Michael Bay scene of highway carnage.

My grade for Never Let Me Go: C-