Movie Review: Never Let Me Go

When I saw that this film starred two of my favorite actresses, Keira Knightley (Atonement)and Carey Mulligan (An Education), I knew I could not pass it up and with respects to the acting this was true. Exceptional performances were given by Knightley and Mulligan who play Ruth and Kathy; two young women born into inescapably frightening circumstances. Andrew Garfield (Boy A) who completes the top billing for the film gives his own gravity to it with his character Tommy. Particularly intriguing however are the wonderful performances by the child actors who play the young Ruth, Kathy, and Tommy, with the most being the young Kathy played by Izzy Meikle-Small.

While giving a big applause to the acting in the film, the story line and script leave the audience with a sense that something is missing. That something? I'll have to read the book first to really know. The film is based on the novel by the same title, published in 2005 and in the same year winning the award "Best Novel" by Time Magazine. The story also has an amazing hook...
It is approximately mid-1950s and scientists and doctors have made great leaps in the field of medicine. Organ transplants are now seamlessly completed, leaving people to exceptionally long life expectancies and a high need for healthy organ donations. The film opens in Britain at a boarding school where children (assumed to be orphans) are bred to be the aforementioned organ donors when they reach their full growth period (late twenties). The three main characters Ruth, Tommy and Kathy are pulled together by friendship, jealousy and ultimately love as they come to terms with their perilous inevitable fate.

It is true that I recommend renting this film when it is available. The final scene in itself makes the whole movie worth watching. But I did leave feeling slightly robbed of something that could have been far more powerful, had there been stronger screenwrighting for the talented cast to use.