I just don't even know where to start with this film. To call it "heartbreakingly beautiful" would be the understatement of the century. I'm tearing up just thinking about it. It was so wonderful that I even watched the "making of" featurette, which I don't do too often. (Ironically, the last one I watched was another British boarding school setting—
Like Minds.)
The concept is similar to that of
The Island, but rather than being action-packed and set in the future, it is set in a very slightly alternate past and is more psychological, reflective. Basically, a group of children (possibly clones) are brought up in boarding schools and lectured on good health and the like. At 18, they move to homes around the country before beginning the process of fulfilling their purpose, which is to donate organs to "real" people. (That is the broad concept. More specifically, the story focuses on three friends and their relationships with each other.) I thought that setting it in the past is much more effective, because it is so much more plausible. Only a slight change in medical technology, no fast cars, advanced gaming systems. Just life as we know it with a slight change. The message is subtly different from the earlier film as well. It's more about accepting fate, making the best of the time you're given, and not being afraid to love. The difference is especially apparent in the operation scenes, though you'd have to see them both to know what I mean.
The
mise en scène is striking and adds a lot to the story. The colors are all muted, sometimes dreary but mostly soft. The same can be said for the sounds. There isn't too much ambient noise, just things like gentle breeze and waves, quiet birdsong, and the like. It creates a sad, almost bleak and haunting feel, sort of like a waking dream. They also used a lot images that were simple but somehow beautiful, like a lot of broken toys laid out on a table, a bird sitting on a teapot, an abandoned and rusted boat on a lonely beach, a glimpse of the crescent-shaped scar on Tommy's back. One image that especially stuck with me was the children singing their school song toward the beginning. The way it was filmed made them seem so young and innocent, and it was heartbreaking because as a viewer, you know that they're headed nowhere. The importance of art to the story, and the manifestation of Tommy's inner self in his strange, wonderful drawings also adds to the sad and dreamlike feel.
Of course, the film wouldn't have been nearly as effective without the absolutely stellar cast. I've always been a fan of Keira Knightly (Ruth). I was very impressed by Carey Mulligan (Kathy) in
An Education. And I could tell from
The Social Network that Andrew Garfield (Tommy) was someone to watch. But in this film, and together, they were beyond brilliant. The chemistry between all three of them was palpable. They were three friends being ripped apart by the cruel circumstances of their fate. On top of this, the first half hour or so focused on them at age 12, and the child actors they cast might as well have been the three older actors 15 years ago. They look the same, have the same vocal inflections and mannerisms. Incredible. (In the making of, I learned that they made a special effort to cast kids who looked the same, and that their adult counterparts read through scenes with them and coached them as to how they would act. Very effective.) Toward the end, there's a shot of Kathy (Carey Mulligan's character) in a car, and for a second I actually thought they had flashed back in time and it was her 12-year-old self. That's how close they were. The adult actors also had to age from 18 to 28, and for Donors that can be a long and hard 10 years. The actors were fantastic in acting the emotional and physical changes of those 10 years, and the hair/makeup/costuming/whoever department did a fantastic job as well. Of all the actors, however, I just can't say enough about Andrew Garfield. His character is very complex, a big-hearted boy who has fits of rage, is nervously shy around other people and yet the object of two girls' affections, quiet and wise. He acts all these things to perfection. The most powerful scene in the entire film is one of him screaming in anguish and rage (which strikingly and powerfully echoes a similar scene that his childhood counterpart had) that goes beyond heart-wrenching to gut-wrenching. The overall film gave me the feeling that my heart was breaking into a million pieces, but this scene of Garfield's was especially powerful and moving. I won't lie, it made me sob. And sob. And sob. Truly magnificent and intense, a distillation of the feel of the rest of the film.
The score for this film was perfect. So perfect and so beautiful that the credits hadn't finished rolling but 5 minutes ago before I was on iTunes downloading it. I hate to pull out that old favorite phrase of mine, but the score really was heartbreakingly beautiful. It's hard to explain, but the feeling I get from listening to it is like the stream of time is slowly, inexorably flowing by the characters and there's nothing they can do to stop it but capture a few moments of love and beauty. Imagine that in musical form, and that's Rachel Portman's stunning score. I also mentioned the children singing the school song earlier, but one additional piece of music that really made the movie was a cassette that young Tommy gave to young Kathy with the song "Never Let Me Go" on it. She listens to it as a young woman and as an adult (and presumably quite often in the interim), and both the young actress and the older one have a wealth of emotions flitting over their faces as they listen to it. The song is perfect of the film, and the way it was used was even more perfect. I really just can't say enough about the music. (Or the acting, or the
mise en scène, or the writing, etc. etc. etc.)
I loved the whole thing. Kathy's final words are a perfect, haunting conclusion: "All of us complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through. Or feel we've had enough time." I can't wait to watch this again or to read the book. Definitely planning to do both. *edit: It's tomorrow, and I just watched it again before I had to return it to the library. It was just as good the second time, and I really just want to watch it
again now. This film is one that will be stuck with me for ages, I think. I've used these words several times before, but I'll say it again: very haunting, very powerful, very beautiful, very heartbreaking.*
Rating: 5.0
