"Never Let Me Go," is an almost perfect adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel but it is going to have a hard time finding an audience because it is slow, sad, and depressing.
I had finished the book 2 weeks before I saw the movie, so the story was fresh in my mind. I think that it really helps to read the book first because it fills in a lot of the gaps that are missing in the movie.
Even if you haven't read the book, the film is still worth seeing for the performances of Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightly.
The only reason the film does not rate a perfect 10 is that in the scene where they are trying to get a "deferral" from Madame, they left out what is probably the most important part of the story.
In that scene in the book, Madame explains to them that the boarding school they went to was paid for by donations and fund raising so that they could be brought up like normal people. Before that, the clones were brought up in concentration camps and treated inhumanly. The whole point of that scene was that Madame and a few others were willing to make great sacrifices because they believed the clones had all the same rights and sentience as all other humans, while the rest of the world thought of them as livestock that were being bred for consumption.
Even though that scene was left out of the film, the final line in the film alludes to the same message and it is a real tearjerker.
Don't be fooled into thinking "Never Let Me Go" is a science fiction movie. It is not. It is a human drama with a science fiction premise. This is not like "Logan's Run" and it really does not go into the details of the science behind the premise. It is a sad and melancholy story about the human condition. If you go into it knowing what to expect, it is highly recommended.
I had finished the book 2 weeks before I saw the movie, so the story was fresh in my mind. I think that it really helps to read the book first because it fills in a lot of the gaps that are missing in the movie.
Even if you haven't read the book, the film is still worth seeing for the performances of Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightly.
The only reason the film does not rate a perfect 10 is that in the scene where they are trying to get a "deferral" from Madame, they left out what is probably the most important part of the story.
In that scene in the book, Madame explains to them that the boarding school they went to was paid for by donations and fund raising so that they could be brought up like normal people. Before that, the clones were brought up in concentration camps and treated inhumanly. The whole point of that scene was that Madame and a few others were willing to make great sacrifices because they believed the clones had all the same rights and sentience as all other humans, while the rest of the world thought of them as livestock that were being bred for consumption.
Even though that scene was left out of the film, the final line in the film alludes to the same message and it is a real tearjerker.
Don't be fooled into thinking "Never Let Me Go" is a science fiction movie. It is not. It is a human drama with a science fiction premise. This is not like "Logan's Run" and it really does not go into the details of the science behind the premise. It is a sad and melancholy story about the human condition. If you go into it knowing what to expect, it is highly recommended.