Never Let Me Go

[George Bellefontaine]

This futuristic (?) drama stars Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. It begins when they are children in what appears to be a very special English boarding school and we follow them into adulthood to where they have to come to terms with not only the love they have for one another, but most importantly of all, just exactly what kind of future they have to look forward to. I could tell you what that future is because it is clearly stated on the disc jacket, but maybe you just want to ignore the cover and watch the movie. It is a well crafted and well acted film that is worth a rental, but be forwarned, most will probably find the ( futuristic ? ) subject matter a bit on the depressing side. Still I was intrigued as I'm sure you will be also.

Note: The reason I put a ? after futuristic is simply because you will find yourself wondering if something like this could really happen in the future.

[Ovation]

I just watched this earlier today (a rare free afternoon for movie watching). It has joined The American and True Grit among my favourite films of the past year (each for different reasons, of course). Carey Mulligan is fantastic, the score is excellent and the performances are very well done. I bought the novel (on Kindle) right after finishing the film.

I agree the film has a haunting, potentially depressing theme but I also think it reminds us how precious life is and how important it is to make the most of the time we do have.

Though not quite the same in tone, it recalls Children of Men in some ways. I plan to add this to my collection.

[madmac]

I've seen this DVD on the shelve at my store, wondered about it, and thought of renting it. Now, you have convinced me to check this movie out!. Thanks!!

[madmac]

Ok, I watched this film and enjoyed it. I thought the acting performances really good. However, I cannot get over one thing. Knowing that they were existing solely for their organs to be harvested, why the hell would they make no attempt to flee??!!!. They looked pretty free to do so during the film. That part I found retarded and could not comprehend it!!. Like lemmings, they lye down on the operating room table to die. I Don't get it!!.

[Ovation]

They don't flee because it doesn't occur to them to do so. That is one of the elements that makes the "universe" in the film different from ours. Do not underestimate two powerful forces at work--1) they are cloned and "raised" for a specific purpose. As children, they are more easily indoctrinated than adults (there are numerous historical precedents for this). 2) they are largely made to live apart from society (this allows the "regular humans" to maintain a conceptual distance from the clones). Each of these things acts as a powerful influence on the behaviour of the clones--they are not given the opportunity to imagine any other course of action.

If it were a real society, I have no doubt there would be some who would attempt to flee and there would likely be "regular humans" who would fight for their rights. But the goal of the story is not to examine exceptions (at least that is not the impression I got from interviews with the author) but to look at the implications where such a system is accepted as a normal aspect of overall society. To have them attempt to flee would change the focus of the story and make it more like The Island.

[George Bellefontaine]

That was a most intelligent reply, Paul.

[madmac]

@Ovation.

Well, they obviously did think.....they did cry...they loved ..... had sex and had natural human desires....they explored, read and they were intelligent. Clones and/or zombies they were definitely NOT as portrayed. If the movie had portrayed them more like ignorant, lemmings, purposefully designed for 'cloning' I guess I could have bought that argument. They obviously did not want to give their organs away and tried to get a 'delay' in that obligation. It just didn't add up for me. I simply could not 'buy' into the fact that they would not think about running!!.

However, I still liked the movie for the 'idea' and the great acting performances.

[wkhanna]

The wife & I saw this one last night on DVD via RedBox. On a side, I have frozen our NetFlix account due to the fact we weren’t renting enough to make it worth while due to the fee increase. We typically rent more indi & foreign films, so RB doesn’t offer the selection like NF, but for more obscure titles, we now go to our local brick&mortor store.

Anyway, we both enjoyed this film, but from totally different viewpoints. My wife was disturbed by the inhuman ‘harvesting’ aspect of the story, and Like Madmac, had a hard time wrapping her head around why the characters seemed so willing to accept their destiny. She also felt there was no reason to think the practice of raising ‘donors’ for the select few who could afford it, couldn’t happen in reality & may in fact be a despicable truth that we simply are not aware of today (she loves concocting all types of conspiracy theories).

I was intrigued by how some characters grasped to the hope of some sort of salvation from their inevitable fate. The idea that by displaying some sort of extraordinary ability or purity of human nature would somehow deliver them from their oppressed existence seems to me one that could be seen as universal to the human condition.

The script was excellent & the acting superb. And we both found the story and its implications thought provoking.

[Chris D]

This sounds very similar to the premise behind "The Island", with Scarlett Johannsen, yes?

[Hdale85]

Similar theme, but much different movie.

[Ovation]

@Ovation.

Well, they obviously did think.....they did cry...they loved ..... had sex and had natural human desires....they explored, read and they were intelligent. Clones and/or zombies they were definitely NOT as portrayed. If the movie had portrayed them more like ignorant, lemmings, purposefully designed for 'cloning' I guess I could have bought that argument. They obviously did not want to give their organs away and tried to get a 'delay' in that obligation. It just didn't add up for me. I simply could not 'buy' into the fact that they would not think about running!!.

However, I still liked the movie for the 'idea' and the great acting performances.

I would not want to push this comparison too far, but there are some similarities between the clones and slaves. To put the "runaway" issue into perspective, you can look at slave societies where the vast majority of slaves made no attempt to escape from their situation (and this is pretty universal across history and geography). This is not to suggest there was no desire for freedom, simply that escape seemed so unlikely an option that few chose to entertain it.

As for the movie, its narrow focus allows it to avoid the issue of "wanting to escape". I don't think, if it were a real society, that escapes would not ever be attempted. I do think such attempts would be relatively rare (as was the case in historical examples of slavery). The film (and its source novel) choose to focus on a small subset for whom running away is not among the options they choose to consider. I would expect, if expanded into an ongoing series, there would be some stories about escape. But then, one of the things I liked about this film was its willingness to take a different route, away from the more expected "run and chase" type of story.

In any event, the fact the film generates this kind of discussion, however one chooses to interpret its message, is evidence that it is worth watching.

[David Meek]

I was going to add spoiler tags but there are enough separate posts that I'm not going to do so.

Please do make use of spoiler tags out of courtesy as there will be a number of people that haven't seen the films being discussed in this forum.

Thank you. The Management