Never let me go (2010)

Never Let Me Go is a 2010 British dystopian drama film based on Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel of the same name. The film was directed by Mark Romanek from a screenplay written by Alex Garland. It stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield, with Sally Hawkins and Charlotte Rampling in supporting roles.

Never Let Me Go centers on Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, played respectively by Mulligan, Knightley, and Garfield, who become entangled in a love triangle and are scientific specimens, created in a laboratory and raised in order to provide their organs to severely ill patients.

Prior to the book's publication, Garland had approached the film's producers, Andrew Macdonald and Andrew Reich, about a possible film, and wrote the film a ninety-six page script. While initially having trouble finding an actress to play Kathy, Mulligan was cast in the role after Peter Rice, who is the head of the company financing the film, recommended her by text message while watching her performance in An Education. A fan of the book, Mulligan ecstatically accepted the role, having hoped to play that specific character if a film adaptation were to ever be made of the book, years before. The film's message and themes were the factors that attracted Andrew Garfield to become a part of the film.

Garfield said the story of Never Let Me Go is about humans and projecting "what it is to have a soul, and how you prove what a soul is"; he says he enjoys the way the film is a "call to arms" about the positives of life. He further adds that its message could hopefully remind people that they have a choice to arise in the morning and wonder what their preference and their activities for the day should be instead of questioning what they should or are obligated to do. Keira Knightley feels that the film's story is alarming, but has said that the film is "more about humanity's ability to look the other way". "You know in fact that if your morals can go out the window if you think you can survive in a certain way, whatever your morals may be," she explains.

Director Mark Romanek has said that, as in the film, everyone has to uncover what our relations to our own mortality is; we have two choices: either go against it, or try to figure out a way around it like the character Tommy does. When questioned about what he'd hoped that audience would get from Never Let Me Go, Romanek said it was to remind people of what is important, like love, behavior and friendships. He recalled an email a person had written to him that said: “I saw your film and it made me cry and I haven’t reacted to a film emotionally like that in years. And I called my father, cause I realized I hadn’t spoken to him in 3 weeks and I told him how much I love him and how much I appreciated what a good father he’s been.”

Kazuo Ishiguro's hauntingly enigmatic novel "Never Let Me Go" is a challenging artistic work that requires its readers to decipher a mysterious story arc that is never fully unveiled in the text. It's complicated to describe, but the brilliance of the work is what it doesn't say--and this ambiguity, when all the pieces finally fall into place, reveal a unique and disturbing alternate reality. It's a difficult piece to conceptualize and adapt to a visual medium. Those hoping for a literal translation might, indeed, be disappointed in the film incarnation of "Never Let Me Go" which can't replicate the novel's precise and measured revelations. However, this lovely and thoughtful film does succeed in its own right as a heartbreaking examination on the nature of humanity.

"Never Let Me Go" does honor Ishiguro's novel in tone, pacing, and mood. Gentle and idyllic, but austere and bleak when necessary, this is a subtle film that requires and rewards patience. The film establishes, from the first frame, that we're embarking on a parallel timeline in which medical science is greatly advanced from our current world. In the British countryside, we meet three youths--Kathy (the film's narrator), Tommy and Ruth--at a tony boarding school named Hailsham. Hailsham students serve a special purpose and their entire existence is lived within the walls of the academy. The three friends form a love triangle of sorts with Kathy and Tommy seeming to be soul mates and Ruth becoming the romantic foil. A treatise on unrequited love, the film follows the kids to young adulthood as they leave the confines of Hailsham at eighteen before fulfilling their final destiny.