Music video director extraordinaire Mark Romanek’s previous film, One Hour Photo, is a haunting and unnerving experience. His long-awaited followup is an adaptation of one of the most critically-acclaimed novels, Never Let Me Go, and it couldn’t be a more different type of film and experience all together.
On paper, Never Let Me Go sounds like a high-concept science fiction tale on the ethics of cloning. It’s not. While it does delve a bit into the moral and ethical issues of cloning (a word not mentioned once throughout the whole running time), it’s a love story first and foremost. It chronicles the love triangle made up by Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and their lives in three stages: their childhood years at Hailsham, their later teen years where they’re left to live on their own, and their early adulthood years where they’re on the verge of finally doing what they were created for: donning.
They were raised with one purpose in mind, which is to give up their organs and die. They don’t see donning their organs and inevitably dying as something awful though, this isn’t Logan’s Run or The Island. They’re prepared for it. It’s a bit odd that people keep pointing it out as a problem that Kathy and Tommy don’t runaway in the end to be with each other, considering they were taught first and foremost that this was what their lives were meant for. It’s all about acceptance. They were what you could call “brain-washed” that early death is their destiny, they weren’t raised with affection or love in mind.
This may sound like a slant, it’s not, but the love story actually isn’t the most emotionally affective part of the film. It’s the theme of how little time we have and also the importance of art. Many haven’t really been talking about the latter, which is surprising. The whole idea of expressing yourself through art is a key to Tommy, and that really adds a lot to him. Art plays into the ethical questions of cloning here and the scene where that is expressed is heartbreaking. The idea of too little time is obvious with the concept, but it’s handled extremely competently; never becoming heavy-handed, even with Ruth practically expressing what the film is about in the final scene.
Never Let Me Go is incredibly subdued and low key — always understated. Romanek only gives details one needs to know about the world itself and the characters — which all feel a part of the 1950’s. There’s a surreal ageless feeling to everything. It’s this subtle attention to detail that also makes this a visual marvel. The distinct color palette adds a lot to the experience: colors slowly drain out of the aesthetic until the final moment, which makes the last scene even more beautiful. Plenty of shots pop like old fashioned photographs, but never in a distracting manner.
If there’s anything to complain about, it’s that you come out wanting more. You wanna stay with Ruth, Kathy and Tommy longer, which is ironic considering wanting more time is a big theme of the film. Saying you wish a film is longer is both a compliment and a complaint, the former is further sign of just how intoxicating this world truly is.