Random Movie Review - Never Let Me Go

I'm going to try a new occasional feature where I review DVDs from a new stash of ones I've never seen, or haven't in a long time. I will include anything new I see in the theatre or on demand as well.

Never Let Me Go, 2010
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley










Never Let Me Go is a film that takes the typical love triangle premise and puts it into an interesting setting. Taking place in an alternate reality where disease has been wiped out by raising children for organs and matching them to humans outside of the 'organ farm'. Three children grow up attending a school that appears a typical strict boarding school until a teacher reveals to them the truth about what is really happening. The children are to live out their adolescence and then, just when they become adults, they are to undergo organ donations to keep a specific person alive, continuing donations until they have 'completed' (died). It is sort of ambiguous as to whether or not these children are natural human beings or some sort of formulated breed. The people in charge seem to be trying to determine this as well. Either way, the kids seem to be resigned to the fact that this is their life. They are allowed to drive to leave their homes seemingly unsupervised and I'm not sure whether they are in fact resigned, or if they're not truly human, or perhaps they suffer from some sort of Stockholm syndrome where they don't know that there is an outside world to escape to, aside from the town where they reside.

The girl who plays the younger version of Kathy (Mulligan's character) was very well cast, as she looks like a younger version of Mulligan. I don't remember hearing about this movie, which is odd because Mulligan was coming off of her breakout hit An Education. I suppose 2010 was a rather busy year for me, so it definitely could have slipped past me.

I liked this movie, mainly because I always enjoy when there is a new spin on a popular plot line. It feels in retrospect like a changing of the it girl guard. Knightley was coming off of a good run of being in every movie (she still has roles, but far fewer it seems), whereas Mulligan was just launching into a run of cult hits and popular films. I give this film a 7/10.