Summer of Movies: Never Let Me Go

I couldn't wait to see this film, even if all the initial buzz failed to translate into award nominations.

Hit:
This resonated. And it had a great tension thanks to the slow-burning story and the strange, alternative-reality sci-fi England. 


The supporting cast: Memorable performances from Charlotte Rampling and Sally Hawkins.

The Cast. Usually I have a love/hate relationship with all three cast members ...
Kiera Knightley: I rooted for her in Pride and Prejudice but she is starting to look like a preying mantas
Carey Mulligan: she deserves to always make the best dressed list, but I can't see her relevance when we have Mia Wasikowska??
and Andrew Garfield: he's great playing the same character but he is becoming a bit of a one-note lately
...but collectively here they all worked (even if they didn't prove me wrong).

Mark Romanek. The director of One Hour Photo and iconic music videos like Janet Jackson’s Got ‘Til It’s Gone has succeeded in making a beautifully understated film.

Miss: 
No real revelations here. We’ve seen versions of this story before, although not so poignantly told. The script brilliantly hinted at an elephant in the room the entire first half without ever acknowledging it to the audience and built the suspense right until the end of the film when it went out gently and without any surprises. I wouldn't have minded this so much except that the premise was not that new. But maybe it is the characters acceptance of it which is the revelation her.


Verdict:
A beautifully painful story that reminds us of the limitations of our own lives. 
7/10

What the experts say:
What is, however, intriguing about Never Let Me Go is the way that the medical police state is imagined to be so entrenched, so invisibly embedded in this tatty, provincial fantasy-England that there is no flash of horror or vertigo when the secret is revealed. Everyone is very English about it: phlegmatic, accepting, melancholy, and this is arguably a shrewd, real insight into how people would actually be — or, indeed, how they actually are.
Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian