Eight and a half Stars out of Ten Stars (********½/**********)
I’ve just got back from a London Film Festival screening of Never Let Me Go, the film which opened the event only last week. Both Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan covered the press the next day, Britain’s brightest, most beautiful starlets, adorning the country’s headlines. But hardly anyone was talking about the film in which they were promoting. It was the afterthought. Fox Searchlight had actually taken it around the festival circuit pre-London, playing at Telluride and then Toronto, and then released it in America in a very limited capacity. By doing this, the quite considerable buzz for the film completely evaporated. Average-to-good reviews at the festivals and an incredibly lacklustre stateside box-office (hardly a surprise) meant the film sunk like a lead balloon. WHY DIDN’T IT PREMIERE AT LONDON? This would be the perfect moment to capitalise on huge anticipation for a niche Brit-centric prestige romance. It’s such a shame, but it looks instead like the film is destined to be largely overlooked.
Regrets aside, I was absolutely engrossed by this. I read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name three or four years ago, and I had an incredibly personal reaction to it then, which has been absolutely echoed by just watching the film. Never Let Me Go follows three children into young adulthood as they are purposely born to follow a path unlike that of ordinary people, one that strips them of the right to live and love and choose their own destiny. It’s a dark, lonely and drastic take on illness, death and the threat of being taken away from our loved ones and our ambitions before we are ready. What really hit me is the poignancy of the three lead characters resignations, as they slowly and painfully become aware they’ll never live the life they so desperately want to.
The beauty is in the tone, which feels so authentic and honest to me. I admit this is something probably fuelled by my knowing and loving the novel and its characters so well already. I can’t quite guess how an audience not familiar with the source material would react, but I suspect this might be where some of the lacklustre reviews have sprung from. Because at its heart, this adaptation is a faithful, graceful, yet not especially groundbreaking stab by director Mark Romanek. But so what? So amazing is that source material, so masterful are the central performances, and so beautifully realised is the end product (especially in score, art direction and cinematography), that it virtually ticks all my boxes. There are issues with pacing, I’ll admit, but it didn’t dampen my overall experience one bit.
And let me just say, these three performances are heartbreaking. Carey Mulligan, who I am not particularly disposed toward usually, is the absolute anchor, and she pitches it perfectly. And I’ve said time and time again that Keira is Britain’s great acting hope for her generation, and again she is absolutely perfect here. In the last third especially I was engrossed by her character; resigned and redundant against a world that has rejected her. Andrew Garfield, in perhaps the most significant role, is equally exciting, and I was reminded of his incredibly empathetic breakout turn in Boy A. I wasn’t sold on Sally Hawkins though, notching up another incredibly mannered performance in the early part of the film.
Ethically the film is somewhat of a warning, but emotionally it confronts you to accept you may run out of time, that your body may give out, and that you might never be able to get by on love and hope alone. Essentially a paean to a beautiful novel, it is luscious enough to warrant a good chunk of your time.
Tags: Andrew Garfield, Boy A, Carey Mulligan, Fox Searchlight, Kazuo Ishiguro, Keira Knightley, London Film Festival, Mark Romanek, Never Let Me Go, Sally Hawkins, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival
January 3, 2011 at 11:23 pm |
Loved this. I think Garfield will become the biggest new star in 2011, depending on what films he’s doing. Really great.