Never Let Me Go - the journey for hope

Oh my God.
This one is a big surprise.

As far as I remember, it has never been publicized too much locally (despite having starred Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield!). As recommended by a nice MO during an overnight call, I traced my to-watch list - and I did put it down few months back!

Without hesitation I picked it up as my weekend choice - and BAM - it blew my away instantly.


The story is and straight, it goes with 3 ordinary childhood friends Kathy, Ruth and Tommy - no different from regular kids - except that they are duplicants. Their lives serve the sole role for preparing organs donation for their originals, and ended at the day their bodies weaken and crash.

When love, emotions, hope and feelings remain; sentimentally the story depicted how the three buddies grew, struggled and proceeded with their hope-deprived and purposed lives...



---- [SPOILER warning: don't read further if you are going to watch!] ----



The group of younger actor and actresses were simply amazing. This is particularly true for the character of Kathy, whom I percieved as the most difficult one to be handled. In the film they tried to synthesize for her a seemingly-passive outlook, covered underneath an overwhelmingly strong personality. Izzy Meikle played it in such sophisticated manner, that in the scene where she was listening to the cassette Tommy gave her, without uttering a word, I could almost feel the long-suppressed love leaking out.

The switch from the young to the grown-up is as well super natural. This degree of continuity is rarely seen on screen. Most of the time films tended to make the younger part brief and simple, ,narrated the growth through snapshots, and proceeded the story in their grown-up.

Never let me go went a different way; it placed extra time for young characters to develop and mature, making the three images and their bonding sharp and clear before they enters teenage. This move is risky, but with good castings, it stunned me well.



I love the casts, the music, the cinematography...and the most lovable area is perhaps the set of atmosphere.

What the movie truly catches me is how it depicts the complex emotions of the duplicated donors. When life was created for bringing hope to another you but not for oneself, when you fell in a love that owns no future, when you feel your soul is being torn apart bit by bit - this is when you start using the cold, emotionless word "completion" instead of "death", to conclude the end of it.

It as well moved me a lot when hearing Tommy firmly reassures:
"We are in love, it's true love, it's verifiable."

When our basic instincts and desires started needing verification, where else do we find the drive for moving on?



Seeing Tommy and Kathy sat on sofa holding hands, with drawings all over the table, hoping for a deferment which never existed - and there they heard the most unsettling reality:

"We didn't have to look into your souls, we had to see if you had souls at all."



Oh it's sooooo gut-wrenching. =[