Review: Never Let Me Go

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Of all the movies that have come out so far this Summer and early Fall, I put the most into watching Never Let Me Go. After seeing the trailer a long while back I researched the book by Kazuo Ishiguro a little bit and my brother told me to read it because it's apparently really good. So I did, and really enjoyed it. I basically read the book in preparation for the movie, something I hadn't really done before, surprisingly. After doing so, the trailer made it look even better because all three of the actors (Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, and Andrew Garfield) looked like they fit the parts so well and the settings, color, and look of it all seemed perfect.

But you always have to remember that it's a book, and a movie is quite different. What we get from director Mark Romanek and screenwriter Alex Garland is basically a short story version of the novel. In the book we get this highly detailed, emotional narrative from Kathy H (Mulligan) looking back on life that paints such beautiful and heartbreaking pictures of Hailsham school, and her friends Ruth (Knightley) and Tommy (Garfield). It's a story of subtle pain and change that is so hard to capture on screen. 

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As everyone must know by now, these three characters and all other children at Hailsham and other 'schools' across England are born and raised to eventually donate their vital organs before they even reach 30. This is emphasized way more than in the book. It's the dark secret in the closet in the book that everyone knows is there, but we focus on the people instead. There's almost a bit of a sci-fi feel to parts of the movie because they shed so much light on this, obviously because it's something so sad and disturbing that catches the audience's attention more than anything. This change in focus makes a lot of the story  unnecessarily creepy and mysterious.

And instead of a more detailed look at their life at Hailsham and the Cottages, we get almost a brief overview of the basics. So while all three actors do a great job and personify their characters well, we never get to know them like in the book as we see their story spread out and developed. In the movie they just get dropped on us and we are expected to understand everything at once. This is no fault of the actors and as I said, they make do very well, but it's not the same people we saw in the text.

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One thing that bothered me and probably didn't bother anyone else, was the music. Even with the twist of the organ donations and whatnot, this is really quite a simple story. So the feel of particularly emotional scenes is key to understanding the greater picture. The music is one of the strongest forces to make that feeling work without overdoing it. And it's a bit overdone here. We get the full strings treatment with mourning cellos, violins, rising and falling. It's the kind of thing where you think "oh, I guess it sounds pretty". But it needs to be more than that. If I had to score this movie, I wouldn't have used more than a piano and cello and maybe violins at key points. Everything would have been simple but poignant, because that's how the story is. The soundtrack to The Road by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is a great example. Very subdued and never overdone but pinpointed so well with heartrending simple notes and melodies. It's not a glaring problem, but one that could've easily made the tone better.

So while the main bulk of the story didn't quite have the heart and flow of the novel, the ending made up for a lot of it. Hearing Kathy's monologue narrated at the end about how we all "complete" and never feel like we've had enough time to understand everything that has happened to us. It's really a moving thought. How often do you really deeply reflect on your life and experiences? Even day to day? Obviously, the characters in this story don't have much time because of their unfortunate fate. But how do we know we'll live any longer than them? Are we ready to go at any time? The book raises some sobering thoughts and I'm really glad the film managed to do so. It's not everything I had hoped it to be, but it's over all a beautiful, short story that should only inspire you to read the book so you can get a better picture of the lives depicted therein.