-- WARNING for people who did not read the book and watch the film yet and want to do so: May contain huge traces of spoilers!!! You've been warned. ---
Being a speaking title, "Never let me go" sets the theme for the story, which is the same in film and book: In a slightly alternative post-WWII reality, the world did not see the rise of nuclear weapons and the following cold war, but the discovery of advanced genetics and cloning technology, which allowed mankind to overcome serious illnesses such as cancer and develop an ever-increasing life expectancy. The price for this utopian society however is payed by clones, named "donors", who "complete" (die) young after they were used as organ sources.
Being based on the same story, the film deviates from its novel source, without doing injustice to the general idea. The focus is much more laid on the three main characters, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, who spend their young life at Hailsham, a remote schoolhouse, which was established by a group of idealists to provide the future donors with a better life for a change and to prove to society that the clones more than soulless slaughter cattle, a rather futile attempt as we learn later on. During their years as pupils, the three befriend and, growing up to young adults, they get into a complicated triangle of love and friendship. Theire relationship is focused on in a larger scale than in the book. Still, thanks to an outstanding performance of all three actors, the figures individually obtain a noticeable depth, much more elaborate than the author himself could imagine them when writing the novel, as Ishiguro stated himself in the Q&A.
The theme of the book being how people struggle to live in spite of all obstacles, thus a metaphor for the idea of life in general, the movie lays emphasis on the different views and approaches of the three figures to their difficult situation. Ruth is presented craftfully by Keira Knightley as a deeply insecure sceptic beside all her superficial confidence, always in doubt and trying to find strength in copying role models, in contrast to Tommy (Andrew Garfield is the only actor who did not match my imagination of the character well as he was not "Wayne Rooney" enough, as Ishiguro stated as well, but still did a great job) who in his naivety can't accept the injustice of his life and only comes to accept the inevitably of his early death through the love of Kathy, a thoughtful but realistic and pragmatic soul, whose approach to make the best of her life as good as she can (Excellently incorporated by Carey Mulligan - In some shots she even reminded me a bit of Audrey Tatou).
In the final stage of the movie the latest, when you see the characters going through their "donations" and eventually "complete" one after another, it is obvious that the moving pictures were painted with a darker palette, compared to their literal source. The easyness of the characters lives is always clouded by electronic check-in / check-out surveillance (such a obvious reason for the characters inability to escape their fate was never mentioned in the novel), and medical examinations at school or the "donations" and their effect on humans are shown much more explicitly. Also, the early disclosure of the children's destiny as donors (to them and the viewers) shifts the atmosphere a bit more towards bleakness than the book did, which concentrated a lot more on their somehow "paradisiac" unaware childhood.
Having said this, the makers of the film certainly succeeded in pointing up Ishiguro's positive idea of mankind. The author said for himself that he is confident the movie shows well his idea that love, friendship and shared memories get acknowledged at the end of life, independent of all sufferings. And indeed, like the book, it's a fantastic but credible metaphor for the universal struggle of humankind to give their life sense, and defends quite powerfully the idea, that even if a chance to get a"deferral" for death (the donor's parallel to "our" beliefs in an afterlife, as stated in the Q&A) seems to be unlikely, it is still possible to live (and die) in dignity.
All in all, the crew did a great job and developed highly captivating storytelling which reflects the marvellous ideas of the novel well, although it was of course inevitable to change some scenes or leave them out in the first place (only the quite deviating imagination of Kathy's pillow-dancing scene still troubles me a bit, as in its negligibility it failed to occupy the key role it did for me in the book). "Never let me go" is a enlightening, moving and highly enjoyable experience, and although reading the novel is not necessary for understanding the action, I would definitely recommend to do so, as it applies a different focus on some things and gives a lot more background information.
The movie will be released on February 11th in Britain and hopefully all over Europe later this year. And if you have the slightest interest in philosophy, down-to-earth sci-fi or even only great cinematic storytelling, go watch it, and I promise you you won't regret it!
"Never Let Me Go" on the IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334260/
Picture house cinema, where I watched the preview: http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/
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