"Never Let Me Go" review

(there's spoilers, yes.)

"Never Let Me Go" is a book by Kazuo Isiguro I read back in April, and watched the film adaptation tonight. The story takes place at Hailsham, a seemingly idealistic boarding school in the English countryside, and the narrator is a young girl referred to as "Kathy H". The first portion is mostly tales from Kathy's youth, and of being at Hailsham with her two best friends Ruth and Tommy, but there are odd little things we're told about the school which suggests something behind it all - visits from Madame, a Belgian woman with an art gallery who picks out some of the children's art work, the way that the children's health is a huge priority - and the film opens with the headmistress, Miss Emily, scolding the entire hall after some burnt out cigarettes were found in the grounds. The children don't ever leave the confinement of Hailsham, or seem to want to, also their parents or families are never mention, nor are their surnames.
And although they already seem to know, it's spelt out to the children by one of the teachers - or "guardians" - that they were brought in the world purely so that when they grow up, these children will donate their organs to patients of private hospitals in need of replacements.

Considering how much I loved the book, the film was always going to have a some faults in it for me, but I really enjoyed Never Let Me Go. For one, it was just so well cast. Carey Mulligan was brilliant as Kathy - she showed all of the mature and sensibility she has in some ways, compared to Ruth and Tommy, then also the fact that she's also naive in a different way. But I think it was Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightly who stole the show for me. Garfield just was Tommy - the rage, the heart, and most of all just the tiny bits of clumsiness in his walk, and so many of his manerisms were so genuine to the character, he is a child all the way through. And Keira Knightly, who I think I've only really seen as a protagonist or a love interest type character, was absolutley brilliant in this where she was bitchy sometimes. In those early scenes in The Cottages, she showed all the tenaciosity and bitterness - I'm mostly referring to the scene where she completley downgraded Kathy in the attic. She was also wonderful playing the aged, weaker and worn out Ruth in the recovery centre.

There were only really two things I was annoyed that they missed out on.

The first was the scene in the book where Kathy listens to "Never Let Me Go" on a Judy Bridgewater tape - she thinks it's about a woman who finally has a baby after a long time of waiting, and she dances around the dormitory clutching a pillow, then notices Madame just watching her. I know it would've been hard to explain without the narrative there is in a book, but this scene was just the key to portraying how Madame saw the children at Hailsham, and how they saw her (Kathy knows she feels awkward around them, and she thinks that she's upset when she sees her dancing because she knows the Hailsham children can never have their own babies, we don't know why at this point).

The second thing was that so many little moments between Kathy and Ruth - them sitting together talking about sex on the pavillion, how Ruth came up and talked to Kathy in her bedroom every night they were together in the Cottages, were missed out on, and although their not that relevant alone, I think this ended up completley forgetting to show a lot about Kathy and Ruth's friendship. "Never Let Me Go" was hugely about friendships between females to me, and really in the film Tommy is much more of a part of Kathy and Ruth's relationship than in the book.

Visually it was beautiful - Hailsham and that area of Norfolk and the Cottages and the boat and really all of the locations were pretty much exactly how I'd imagined them. It was a weird time to watch this, because recently I've developed this odd amount of love for England (maybe it's because of all the Laura Marling music) considering normally I complain about living here. I shouldn't, really, it's beautiful, and Never Let Me Go showed that not in dramatic landscapes or anything incredible but just on what is here and what is real.

Other little things - Miss Emily was too harsh-looking, though I really liked Chrissy (even though she wasn't like I'd imagined) and Rodney (Bill Weasley?!) - I loved the scene in the cafe where Tommy, Ruth and Kathy are quite socially anxious around the waitress and have no idea how to order.

In short, Never Let Me Go was brilliantly cast, visually lovely and a very underrated British film - although I did like The King's Speech, I really think this deserved much more of the credit that had.

Um... fin.