Never Let Me Go

Kazuo Ishiguro has long been one of my favourite authors. The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go and particularly, The Unconsoled, rank among my best loved books. I was therefore very excited by the prospect of this film and I was not disappointed. Never Let Me Go is a beautiful, well-considered interpretation of an unusual and unsettling novel. The story involves the imagining of an alternative reality, where medical science has enabled the growing of human clones that are used as organ donors. The donors are isolated from society, raised in special boarding schools where they are taught about what they are and what the purpose of their lives is. The story focuses on the lives of three clones, Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Keira Knightly). We see them grow up together at the seemingly idyllic Hailsham College, then live as young adults at “the Cottages” a residential centre where they begin to make limited contact with the outside world. Finally, we see them “complete” their short lives as they donate first one, then two and, if they survive, perhaps three or four, vital organs. As you might imagine, it’s a desperately sad story, but it is told without undue sentimentality or melodrama. The donors calmly accept their fate and I wondered whether that would happen in real life. I expect it would in the absence of outside agitation. If you are taught from birth that your purpose in life is to be a donor, it’s likely that you would accept that, unless someone made a strong argument to the contrary. No such argument occurs here. Society has accepted the role of donors and will not be swayed to return to the dark days of premature death from lung cancer, heart failure or kidney disease. The film is beautiful to look at and the cast are excellent, particularly Carey Mulligan who is perfectly cast. Personally, I would spend a few hours watching her read from the phone book. She has one of the most attractive, kind and expressive faces to grace our screens in recent years. Here she is perfect in the role of the “carer”, a donor herself, who has the task of helping others through their completions. The love triangle between Kathy, Ruth and Tommy forms one of the movie’s central themes. Naturally, the film raises big moral questions, but does so through dispassionate observation, rather than heavy-handed moralising. Clearly it is wrong to clone and use humans as donors in this way. The real question is: why is it wrong? How you answer this may tell you a lot about yourself.