Never Let Me Go in Utopian and Dystopian Reading Group

Mar 02, 2013 Shawn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Still trying to scratch off the residue left by this film. Sort of like waking up in the morning feeling like you must have had a nightmare but you can't remember what it was but it sticks to you, weighing you down, for a day, a week.. And like some nightmares, Never Let Me Go, is subtle, and more terrifying, than a classic horror shocker.. Never Let Me Go ambles forward, slowly revealing the scientific breakthrough, the medical miracle, that is announced at the beginning of the movie. We lear description

Still trying to scratch off the residue left by this film. Sort of like waking up in the morning feeling like you must have had a nightmare but you can't remember what it was but it sticks to you, weighing you down, for a day, a week.. And like some nightmares, Never Let Me Go, is subtle, and more terrifying, than a classic horror shocker.. Never Let Me Go ambles forward, slowly revealing the scientific breakthrough, the medical miracle, that is announced at the beginning of the movie. We learn first that science has enabled humans to live beyond one hundred years by perfecting the art of organ harvesting. Certainly the children are key to the discovery, but their role is revealed much later.. Are they the guinea pigs? Why have they been orphaned?What makes them special and why is the boarding school's headmistress always reminding them of their special status and about the importance of taking care of their health? Why have they never left, or been allowed to leave, the boarding house and why have they created stories about the horror of the world beyond the walls? From what are they being protected?

The story centers on the intertwined lives of three of children at Hailshaim, the boarding house. Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield), and Ruth (Keira Knightly), form a sort of love-triangle. As a young girl, Kathy falls in love with the emotionally fragile Tommy. Ruth is jealous of Kathy's love for Tommy, and when she realizes that Tommy is beginning to get close to Kathy, she moves in a steals Tommy away from her. They become boyfriend and girlfiriend until adulthood. Ruth suffocates Tommy with attention and he submits to her it seems, not because he is in love with her, but because he has become resigned to the role she needs him to play. Kathy becomes more withdrawn and thoughtful, observing the two from a distance, but still remaining friendly to both. At this point, the watcher might feel that the movie is a story about childhood love and heartbreak, as it successfully portrays the complexities of the children's relationships with one another.It certainly is about love and loss, but it is also about much more.

The children are actually clones who have been 'harvested' or 'bred' to become donors of the "real" human race soon after they enter adulthood. Hailsham is really not a boarding school for orphans, but, rather, a laboratory whose objective it to prove that the child clones actually have souls. The children are asked to color and create art which is sent off for psychologists to mull over and analyze in order to detect traces of spirituality int he children. If they are mere 'material,' the harvesting may continue. If they do, indeed, have souls, there humanity is proven. They can be given freedom. They can live as 'real' humans. But even if they are real, if they do have souls, another dilemma arises: too many people have become reliant upon them to provide them with extended lives. They have literally become the life's blood of the rich and privileged. It is this realization that puts the friend's relationship into focus.

By asking, "What does it mean to be a clone?" the film questions the nature of humans. By the end of the film, we have become sympathetic to the fate of the children being harvested for their organs. We are led to the conclusion that the clones are more human than humans. Throughout the film I was struck by how polite, how innocent, how pure these kids were. They can only be described as 'angelic.' Even after they are told by one of the minders, or teachers, that their lives would come to a premature end some time in early adulthood (the process they will undergo is called "donation" and usually after the third donation, they will be said to have "completed"), they calmly accept their fate and short existence on earth. One can't help but cry out for them, to be outraged for them. I wanted to reach through my screen and pluck them out of this perverse dystopia they were forced to inhabit. Surely there must be some other candidates to substitute for them. The film would like us to believe that their world is but a microcosm of humanity and that ultimately we all must become resigned to our fates, all of which ultimately result in death. The tragedy of the film is that the children seem so undeserving of their fate, but then we have to ask, "Who does deserve death?" ...more

1 like · Like · see review