Never Let Me Go

[nazzio]

I saw this at Swiss Cottage with my sister. We both found the movie touching and felt quite subdued for a little while after.

Keira Knightly just irritates me, I cannot understand her popularity in all honesty, which is odd coming from me as I'm not a hugely judgemental person! I thought Carey Mulligan was great, I loved her narration. I haven't watched any of her movies before so I was pleasantly suprised by how good she was.

As for the scenes in the movie, my favourite had to be the cafe scene when they were ordering. The genuinely looked so freaked out! I also liked the scene when Keira's character quite defensively apologises for what she'd done - she was good in that scene.

All in all, it's a good movie but I do think it could have had even more depth for a greater impact. I was expecting to shed some tears, but in the end I was dry eyed. 7/10

[docb]

Another great British film with a great, mainly British, cast. Yet another example of the superiority (despite the common misconception - mainly by Americans) of British films over US films. And of the depth and quality of British actors over American actors.

[raj101]

only saw part of this (since the Picturehouses decided to change their publicised timings for slackers club grrr lol well it would annoy you too if you turned up to find the film had started 40 minutes earlier than the time on the website on the weekend...but thats enough moaning from me).

A good movie, but a little boring due to needing some filling in of details from the start of the movie. A little drawn out at times though. Kiera is annoying isnt she? Shes better in a Disney comic role, but here, no, shes very miscast.

Good to see a british film delivering the goods.

[superhero]

What kind of Disney comic role for Keira? POTC?

[raj101]

What kind of Disney comic role for Keira? POTC?

thats exactly it, supes. shes fun when shes an overacting pouting, gobby sod aka Liz Swan lol.

In POTC 1 that is. no one really puts in a days work in the sequels, bless 'em.

[Legs]

Too dark and deary for me. And I was quite bored.

[Preston1990]

Wow, what a mixed bag of reviews from everyone! It seems like people either loved or hated this film.

I thought it was terrific, but (understandably) there had been changes to the storyline as it had made the transition from the book to film which detracted a little from the believability of certain aspects of it. [spoiler]In particular, but by no means exclusively, such as why Tommy was with Ruth rather than Kathy and also why the kids just didn't run off to escape their fate. Not being troubled by the same time constraints, the book has the luxury of being able to take more time and care to explain the friendship between Ruth and Kathy. It goes into more detail about other events and presents the timeline in a different order too. This gives the story a more realistic and believable feel. As KevinK has already explained particular events are changed as well, presumably for the sake of brevity. There is no early bombshell in the book, and the slow release of information to the reader mirrors the conditioning and adds to the reasonableness of the acceptance by the children to their fate.[/spoiler]

I thought that all the three leads were pretty good in the film (both grown ups and children) - yes even Keira Knightley - but I did not feel that the script had been overly kind to her. There is no doubt in my mind though that Carey Mulligan stole the show with her exceptional performance. I've read that the director asked the grown up leads to bring in photos of themselves as children so he could use them as a reference when casting their younger counterparts. The idea seems to have worked well.

I thought that the cinematography was fantastic. It seemed to have been shot in such a way so as to add to the bleakness of the storyline. I would commend in particular the outside scenes shown in the excursion to the boat. The colour palette is very restrained with it's hues all verging on a grey windswept drabness.

A tremendously shocking, sad, bleak film about love, friendship and erosion of hope.

8.5 out of 10 for the film.

[raj101]

I'm not sure you could tell such a bleak tale like this any other way.

The complete acceptance of your life as a 'clone' was a most depressing aspect to accept, like a child who hasnt yet leaned how to appreciate their future life is then told they have terminal cancer. Without that it wouldnt have been the same film. You were really wanting some rebellion from one of the characters, maybe Kiera would pick up a cutlass and chop her way out of this predicament? But no, that was unimaginable in this world. Instead they wander round like children and by the time they deveop some autonomy in their mid twenties, its too late.... not even a film about class struggles, but of the acceptance of the worst kind of social divisors.

Becasue the main characters were featured when quite young, t reminded me of Victorian children who died prematurely in the mines from lung disease, or those in past times who had such short life spans amongst the beleaguered and poverty struck classes, and whereat their crappy lives were just acccepted as the norm back then. Souls that arent actually that far away in time (one long lifetime away from those Victorian children, and really just an alternative version's decade or two away in this 90's film context) but for whom you CAN DO NOTHING to help them. Thats the emptiness conveyed in this movie. Heartbreaking really.

Finally, the point I came back on this thread to add, is that this is probably the first 1990's theme movie we have seen (well, there adult lives were in the 90s anyway). Its an alternative 90's of course!