Never Let Me Go - 05 - Inevitable Comparisons

[Zeljka]

Here you may post your opinions about how faithful was or was not the adaptation to the book in the question.
Some helpful hints to how to approach this thread may be for an example:
- visual depiction of the book
- character development and the acting
- (plot) omissions and additions
- interesting details (trivia and goofs)
- likes and dislikes.
You may also say how did you imagined the book would be filmed, which actors you would have chosen etc. That might spark really interesting discussion :-)

[Zeljka]

Since I have started this thread and the whole discussion, I feel responsible to add something to it. So, below goes my review of the film in comparison to the book - you may ignore it totally of course, and follow the instructions above. I just wasn't sure where to put it - it didn't seem appropriate to add a review to the movie thread, as it is clouded by the book itself, therefore not objective. Here it goes...

If I had seen the movie before reading the book, I probably wouldn't have read it, which would have been quite a shame. The novel had so much to offer to a movie adaptation, so it really puzzled me why they (I can't point finger solely to the screenwriter, who is also famous writer – Alex Garland – because the screenwriter is only one person in the whole machinery that is behind the making of the film, and mostly has very little influence on how the movie will look like in the end) decided deliberately to omit some things from the book and invent the others. Don't get me wrong – the movie itself doesn't seem bad, only strange and confusing, just because the background story was unnecessarily changed too much.

The movie did manage to illustrate how alienated they were from our world – which was in this alternate world both our fault and intention – but failed to provide us with answers why would we be so cruel, to behave like that to them. They look exactly the same as we do. What was wrong with us - since when humans deliberately regard other humans only as replacement parts?.. Oh. I already regret the question.

Anyway – in the book we get very clear picture of how they (Kath and the others) think, while on screen you obviosly can't have that kind of insight. In the movie you see that they were brainwashed as kids so to not even try to jump the fence. They also had the tagging bracelets constantly on them, so their escape would be difficult even if they tried, because I guess there was no place in the world where they could have hidden themselves. But you anyway ask yourself over and over again WHY they were so meek. Yes, that word describes them perfectly - meek. They didn't try to struggle, not at all, their anger and powerlessness was voiced only between themselves and never, absolutely never turned against those who imprisoned them so.

For me, the crucial scene was that scene between kids and Madame. In the book the whole situation was visually more-less innocent – they were only gaily walking to Madame, but too close, which scared her so much that she froze on spot, while in the movie kids were really intimidating Madame standing in front of her and blocking her way. In the book that scene revealed the kids' very different nature and docility, while in the movie it suggested that they had in themselves something rebellious and creepy, which simply wasn't true, and also contradicts the rest of the movie. That scene should have been worked out as in the book just for the sake of the consistency of the story itself. It also could have helped us understand the characters in the movie better.

In the novel, Ishiguro keeps us tapping in the dark till the end, while in the movie that suspense - about their purpose and the general course of their lives - pretty much evaporated with the first scenes of Hailsham. However, one character was gotten perfect – Kath. She was slightly changed, but her traits expressed in the book and omitted in the movie weren't anyway so important. Tommy also, being an eager athlete in the book and clumsy insecure introvert in the movie, that didn't matter either. Ruth's character in the book wasn't quite such as depicted in the movie. So what, maybe producers wanted to have more Keira time in the movie. No problem with that, but some essential scenes were changed in the process. Why did they have to change the way the relationship between Kath, Tommy and Ruth was developed? As a result of mingling with the main plot, we got mixed clues – in the movie Kath was one more in love, with Tommy, while in the book the opposite was evident. In the movie Tommy didn't ever show more than friendly concern for Kath and went for her only after Ruth suddenly got guilty conscience at the end of her life.

The end of the movie also was different – probably because producers didn't want movie to be too gloomy, it was already making the audience feeling miserable and frustrated. Actually, I found the ending more pleasing than in the book. So, the moral of the movie is a bit different, that we should cherish the moments with our loved ones more because we don't know when our time would be up. But you see, I have a problem with the key words here - the loved ones. I didn't feel any connection with the characters in the movie nor why they actually hanged out so much with each other if we exclude obvious reason of not having anybody else around. I didn't have such issues with the novel.

Well, maybe that's a reason why people should watch the movie first and then read the book. On the other hand, as I said at the beginning of this rant, I probably wouldn't have read the book if I had seen the movie first.

[Alana]

I wonder if I watched the movie too soon after reading the book, although I read the book over three months ago. I just couldn't get into the characters the same way I could in the book. It was all about how they thought and viewed the world, where in the movie you feel more like they should be rebelling. In the book you get that sense of hope and "maybe" but that's barely gone into in the film. Not to mention all the character development that's missing from deleted scenes like looking for the tape and their land where everything that went missing will be found, and finding a copy of the tape again on their excursion, thus setting up the relationship between Tommy and Kathy better. It was well acted, but I felt as if they weren't given any script to work from.