Jul 20, 2011

Never Let Me Go (2010) - no more smiling today


directed by Mark Romanek / starring Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley

Ruth, Tommy and Kathy grown up in an idyllic boarding school in the English country side. They are not normal children, however, and this they learn from a teacher, who simply feels too sorry for them to keep them in the sweet ignorance. And thus they are forced to adjust to the truth, and try and live the rest of their lives as well as they can.

Never Let Me Go is not a very cheerful movie. Actually, it's quite depressing. It never really rubs it in your face, but in fact it's quite cruel and ruthless and hopeless. All of that is almost hidden under the beautiful music, young love, the lingering shots of the English country side, the gentle voices of the actors and the subtle ways of handling all that cruelness and hopelessness. But yeah, I know I won't be smiling for the rest of the day. It's just so unfairly sad to watch young, beautiful people turn into wrecks as their lives are thrown to waste beyond their own control.


 The reason I first got interested in this film was its splendid cast; the cream of Britain's young talent is at work. Mulligan is inevitably on her way to winning at least a lap-full of Oscars, Garfield is only the most disarmingly adorable thing ever, who manages to melt anyone's heart with that humanity and innocence he conveys through his every role, and even though not everyone likes Keira, I do, and I thought she did really well, too.

There have been numerous films surrounding this topic, but never before has it been looked at from such an emotional and humane point of view. It's always just so sci-fi. In Never Let Me Go all that has been stripped down to the minimum, which allows us to see the real tragedy behind the sci-fi. I also think it was very clever to set the film in the past, instead of future, as usually. It doesn't feel so alien and far-fetched, but actually very real and relatable.

What the heck, I'm not rambling. Or writing unrelated, stupid things just because they pop into my head. That's all I have to say, really. Weird! I bet it's because I cut 25 centimetres off of my hair today. I feel like Samson, when that bitch Delilah cut his hair and he lost all of his powers.


"None of you will go to America. None of you will work in supermarkets. None of you will do anything, except live the life that has already been set out for you."

2 comments:

June said...

I still haven't seen this.. Shame on me! But I guess I haven't had the courage, actually. Maybe when autumn comes with all its darkness and rain and everything I feel depressed enough to watch something really sad. But summer is supposed to be stress-free and loaded with sunshine and happiness, so seeing something like this might feel a bit ..too overwhelming. Especially when all my time seems to go to the epic healing process of Potter ending ;___;

Eeva said...

Yep, maybe best not to ruin a sweet sunny day with this gloomy thing! Especially on top of the Harry depression, might not be a good idea...