Review: Never Let Me Go

An incredibly unique and moving love story set in a science fiction alternate world, with great central performances from some of Britain’s young rising stars Knightly, Garfield and Mulligan.

Before watching Never Let Me Go I had not read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel from which the film is adapted; I hadn’t even seen a trailer for it. In fact I’d only really read little snippets about it and had no real idea of what it was going to be about. This is probably the best way to go into the film. All I really knew was that it starred Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightly and Carey Mulligan, most likely Britain’s best young talents currently around, and they did not disappoint. For this review I do have to issue a spoiler warning, as this is a film which is difficult to discuss without revealing a few plot points. So if you’d prefer to see the film completely ignorant of its later story, I’d advise you to stop reading now. That said, these details, while secretive and unexpected, do not form the main basis of the story.

The film takes place in a dystopian alternate world, where right from the outset it is revealed that there have been major medical breakthroughs that have had significant consequences within the reality. Then the main character, Kathy 'H' (Mulligan), starts to narrate in a fairly melancholic manner, as we see her in a hospital viewing someone go into surgery. Here she uses words such as ‘donors’ and ‘carers’, so from the beginning we can sense the direction in which it’s going. After this we are taken back to Kathy’s past, where she is a student at the boarding school Hailsham. Immediately there seems to be secrecy about Hailsham; the worst thing the students can do is smoke and, as one new teacher discovers, the students are not allowed to leave its grounds. All the same, the children seem to be living a perfectly joyous existence.

In this part of the story we see Kathy fall for another student, Tommy (Garfield), who is a troubled, shy boy. Through their time at Hailsham their love develops, but just as they start to grow closer, Kathy’s best friend Ruth (Knightly) steals Tommy away. This love triangle between Kathy, Ruth and Tommy is the central focus of the film with the dystopian world around them as a backdrop. The adapted script by Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) does a great job of exposing the societies dark secret gradually, as we learn that the students at Hailsham have been bred as organ donors for people in the outside world. We learn this quite early on when one of the teachers tells the students their purpose before being promptly fired, and all of the strange occurrences begin to come into focus. The film then moves to later in the life of Kathy, Ruth and Tommy as they leave Hailsham to face the wider world. They are sent together to The Cottages, which is deep in the countryside and isolated from any towns. Here other ‘donors’ join them and they live in near solitude. Ruth and Tommy are still together, which clearly affects Kathy in a heart-breaking way. There are great performances all round here as the film shows off some of Britain’s greatest up and coming actors. Garfield is wonderful playing the naïve, unknowing Tommy, and together with Mulligan, does a great job of showing the difficulty of being in love within this alternate society. Knightly stands out with a performance appearing bitchy, yet still managing to keep our sympathy for her situation. The decisions her character makes are conniving, but later we see the regret pasted on Knightly’s face in emotional scenes.

There can be obvious similarities drawn with The Island, as both films have comparable concepts. But the tone of Never Let Me Go is completely different, with the ‘donors’ resigned to their fate rather than attempting to escape it. The dystopian society in which the film is set is not explored with a lot of detail, it simply forms the premise for an incredibly moving and affecting story. This is just director Mark Romanek’s third film in 25 years at work and he’s known more for his music videos. But rather unpredictably he does a great job here, and the film is shot gorgeously. The questions that Never Let Me Go asks you are about humanity, regret, love and existentialism. It’s only when Kathy and Tommy eventually do come together as lovers, do their roles within this world seem cruel and immoral, and while the film can seem ponderous at times, as it concludes you’re left feeling philosophical and emotional.