Perhaps it's perverse to review something with an eye to how bad it COULD have been. 'Never Let Me Go', the film version of Kazo Ishiguro's Booker-shortlisted 2005 novel, manages to escape being a mawkish, sentimental and rather formulaic thriller through the subtlety of Alex Garland's sensitive, nuanced screenplay.
Like Ishiguro, Garland let's the world of Hailsham and it's fey child inhabitants unfold slowly on screen, pulling us into their strangely altered reality. The schoolchildren wear electronic tags, are sternly encouraged to be as physically healthy as possible, and have a paranoid fear of the outside world.
If, like me, you don't know before you watch what's going down in the boarding school, you find yourself intrigued, saddened and not a little sickened by the sinister truth. Much of the film's impact lies in not knowing the set-up before it's revealed. There'll surely be some though who know the novel or who'll have have heard spoilers.
The strength of Kazo Ishiguro's vision lies in not letting the characters at the heart of his story be Orwellian victims desperate to break free from the omnipresent tyranny of a state which persecutes them.
There are countless examples of this 'Trueman Show'-type genre. A more insensitive writer, or faithless producer, would undoubtedly have ramped up the jeopardy and had the protagonists running for their lives in a bid to be human.
Ishiguro, on the other hand, meditates on how far the characters themselves are complicit in their situation, and to what extent they're the unwitting ciphers of an uncaring, health-obsessed society.
Thus we're spared the 'bad' version of this story and treated to a somewhat philosophical, character-driven narrative.
But the chief thing that struck me watching 'Never Let Me Go' was the sheer beauty of Mark Romanek's production design. The screen constantly evolves in a muted palette of blues and soft autumnal browns, counterbalancing the uglier truths at the the heart of the society being depicted.
Clever.
Like Ishiguro, Garland let's the world of Hailsham and it's fey child inhabitants unfold slowly on screen, pulling us into their strangely altered reality. The schoolchildren wear electronic tags, are sternly encouraged to be as physically healthy as possible, and have a paranoid fear of the outside world.
If, like me, you don't know before you watch what's going down in the boarding school, you find yourself intrigued, saddened and not a little sickened by the sinister truth. Much of the film's impact lies in not knowing the set-up before it's revealed. There'll surely be some though who know the novel or who'll have have heard spoilers.
The strength of Kazo Ishiguro's vision lies in not letting the characters at the heart of his story be Orwellian victims desperate to break free from the omnipresent tyranny of a state which persecutes them.
There are countless examples of this 'Trueman Show'-type genre. A more insensitive writer, or faithless producer, would undoubtedly have ramped up the jeopardy and had the protagonists running for their lives in a bid to be human.
Ishiguro, on the other hand, meditates on how far the characters themselves are complicit in their situation, and to what extent they're the unwitting ciphers of an uncaring, health-obsessed society.
Thus we're spared the 'bad' version of this story and treated to a somewhat philosophical, character-driven narrative.
But the chief thing that struck me watching 'Never Let Me Go' was the sheer beauty of Mark Romanek's production design. The screen constantly evolves in a muted palette of blues and soft autumnal browns, counterbalancing the uglier truths at the the heart of the society being depicted.
Clever.