Review - Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go

Based on the praised Kazuo Ishiguro novel, and set in an alternative-universe England in the 1960′s where medical advances have allowed most people to live past 100. This almost innocuous opening leads into the friendship between three children in a strict but oddly co-ed boarding school, where a Kubrick-esque idea of childhood and education is developed into the main plot point: these children are clones bred to eventually harvest organs for their real counterparts. The three main characters are played in the later part of their lives (the majority of the film) by Keira Knightly, Carey Mulligan and Social Network star and future Spiderman Andrew Garfield, and in his third directorial effort (almost his fourth, but he pulled out of The Wolfman after a year of pre-production) is Mark Romanek, whose music videos for Nine Inch Nails, Beck and others give genuine weight to arguments regarding the value of music videos in the art world.

It’s a novel idea Mark Romanek has done, but I give more credit to writer Alex Garland (Sunshine, 28 Days Later) for there is a unique way to watch the film — I chose the conservative manner (beginning middle end… I’m a creature of habit) but if you watch the last half an hour on its own, it will be a much more rewarding experience, as the first two thirds of this film are completely irrelevant in character, tone and story. Thank you Alex Garland… nothing of merit happens through the dialogue, it’s all so over-prepared. The characters are trudging through their lives waiting to die, and at no point do they actually fight for their lives. Watching a 12-year-old have closure on their own mortality does not lend to much empathising on any level.

The story begins in the school, where our three characters meet and the foundations of a love triangle are laid. In the making of the film, to gain relevant traction for the junction from childhood to adulthood, the child actors spent two weeks in rehearsals working with Keira and co, blending and refining the nuances and performances to a point where during these early rehearsal stages, the adult actors would routinely take over from their child counterparts in certain scenes to see how they would play it. It sounds like a genuinely good idea for blending performances over time, but there is a problem — the child actors are so like their adult counterparts that are no longer children, with the result that the opening scenes in the school are never playful or innocent, but charmless and dull. Garland never plays with notion of childhood in any manner that’s not forced or merely necessary to the narrative, and fails too in the adolescent romance which of course leads to the main body of the film. From the very beginning it’s disingenuous and shallow and is always playing catch-up to pad out the story. Which leads to the biggest fault overall – once they are revealed to be hosts/clones for other peoples organs, they still never try and leave. Why do they never run away?! It’s not a prison, you are a clone, you are being breed to die! It’s a lobotomised Island where after a while I’m less concerned with the romantic story arc and more with shouting JUST LEAVE!!!! NO ONE WILL STOP YOU over and over again at the screen. Watching characters who have so little respect for their own lives kills any tension or hope for the main cast.

It has beautiful musical accompaniment though, by one of the most wonderful composers of recent times, Rachel Portman. She writes for character and her themes are passionate, warm and cutting. Her score for Infamous should be recognised as one of the finest of the last decade. Sadly, though, when there is little happening on screen, music is used to induce emotion from the audience. It saturates any hope of genuine empathising with the stoic characters. This is horrifying at times as it becomes a token symbol of what the audience should be feeling and keeps happening over and over again — please!!! let me appreciate the film without using this giant and haunting score so poorly mixed as it completely overwhelms any experience that can be gleaned from the carcass of this film.

I haven’t hit upon the most infuriating point yet: Carey Mulligan. Her British colleagues are grooming her for future greatness, but damn, she is incredibly dull. Her performance in An Education caught people’s attention (not mine) which led to a starring role in the great dictator Oliver Stone’s Wall St 2…. eh something about sleeping… where she gave the same performance, that being of someone a little bit lost, but not confused enough to ask for anybody’s help. Carey’s acting career so far is akin to a co-worker you want to help but think one more day and she will finally have it. Please let that day come soon. She’s just lifeless, which is really made cringingly obvious when Keira is on screen. Not because she is anything special, it’s just she is not as bored as her fellow actors — she sees something in her role which gives her momentum, unlike especially Andrew Garfield who has yet to convince me he is anything more than a Hayden Christensen impersonator of nerdy unease and cowardly irritability.

Overall Never Let Me Go is a messy two thirds followed by a focused and beguiling third act that makes the mess an oddly worthwhile but never necessary film. The whole film feels like an extended trailer for the real thing to come, a film where reason applies, and a sense of worth is valued, and a film which would dare to argue the outside opinions of this society, but with Alex Garland’s writing it was never going to challenge anyone.