Never Let Me Go
Director: Mar Romanek
With: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley, Charlotte Rampling, Sally Hawkins
An alternate universe very much like our own, but where death has been delayed via scientific breakthroughs. There is a price.
In an English country school, three young friends, Kathy (Mulligan), Tommy (Garfield) and Ruth (Knightley), go through the usual school problems and adolescent tribulations. Kathy is sweet on Tommy, but Ruth steals him away, and Kathy is so mature and self-contained that she endures this.
One teacher (Hawkins) decides to tell them that their hothouse existence is not what makes them special, but to divulge this would be a spoiler. She is fired, but the secret is out.
Ten years later, their fate is clear. Kathy has become someone who facilitates the process for which these children were intended. She has not seen her friends, but finds them in the course of her work. From this point, the inevitability of the plot runs itself out, with a revelation at the end.
However, given the tone and direction of the story, it didn’t come as much of a shock.
The acting is uniformly good, with Mulligan a stand-out, and the girl who plays her as a youngster (Izzy Meikle-Small) terrific. Knightley has all of her annoying mannerisms under control, and Garfield manages a credible English accent.
Yet, the movie is torpid, and to me, predictable. One wanted a bit more passion in it, or something like it. Instead, it is dour and dreary. Too bad. A great premise.
B-