A few weeks back, I read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Then, days later, my wife and I saw the movie. I thought I'd try a newfangled approach and review both of them in a single blog post. That's right people, I'm cutting edge...a meta-blogger on the new frontier, constantly re-defining what is both cool and morally acceptable in today's blogosphere.
Too much?
Anyway, for those of who you don't look further than the star-ratings in my reviews, I'll render them here. Never Let Me Go, the novel, gets ****. The film adaptation gets ***1/2.
Never Let Me Go is ostensibly a science fiction story. If all you ever hear is a summary of the plot, it sounds kind of like The Island, the horrible Michael Bay crapfest about escaped clones and Scarlet Johansson. I've already had a couple conversations with people who have remarked that the two sound similar and I've gotten annoyed, so annoyed, in fact, that I've just started telling people that they should read the book or see the movie and refused to tell them what it's about.
You can imagine how successful that's been.
Anyway, I'm going to try to summarize the plot here. But, as I've made clear, I don't want anyone to come away from this blog post thinking that Never Let Me Go sounds like The Island, because the very idea that people would place these two works in the same category -- any category -- pisses me right off.
I'll just say it. SPOILER ALERT.
Never Let Me Go takes place in an alternative history wherein, in the mid-20th Century, medical advances have made life more sustainable for the general population -- this setup is made explicit in the movie, but is only implied in the book. The centerpiece for these advancements is the development of human clones, bred and raised for the sole purpose of harvesting their organs when they reach adulthood. In both the novel and the film, the nature and mechanics of the science is not discussed in any detail, it's just a backdrop for a human story.
The story is narrated by Kathy H. and is split into three parts. The first act takes place at Hailsham, a sheltered boarding school for cloned children where they are taught the bare minimum about the world, the facts of the life and, eventually, about the purpose they were designed to serve. As a child, Kathy becomes friends with a Ruth, a selfish drama-queen, and Tommy, a boy who, at the beginning anyway, has severe emotional problems. Hailsham students are mysteriously encouraged to produce art -- paintings, sculptures, poetry -- in order to please the administration and, hopefully, get their pieces accepted into a mysterious gallery that is never fully explained until later.
The second act follows Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy to "the cottages," where they grow from adolescence into adulthood and get a chance to experience and learn more about the world around them, even though their eventual fate constantly hangs over their heads. It's there that they hear rumors about the ability of some "donors" to earn deferments wherein they can have their donations put off for a few years. All they have to do is prove that they're in love with each other. This causes problems for the three lead characters because while Ruth and Tommy have been a couple since they were kids, everyone recognizes that Tommy and Kathy are really the ones that are in love.
The final act takes place when they're adults, already beginning the process that will eventually end in their deaths, or as they refer to it, their completions. In this story, donor's don't "die," they "complete." Ruth's selfish nature has split the three formerly inseparable friends and they go years without seeing each other. Drawn back together through a series of events (unimportant events really), the three reconcile and, facing the end of their short lives, attempt to make peace with all the wrong that went on between them. And, with a hope that the rumors about deferments are true, Tommy and Kathy decide to give it a try. It is through their efforts that we finally learn the purpose of the Hailsham students art gallery...but I won't spoil that here, nor will I tell you how the story ends...that wouldn't be nice.
Reading this summary, you might conclude that Never Let Me Go is an exploration of the ethics behind human cloning and the sanctity of human life. I suppose you could read that into it, but it's not really the point of this story. Instead, it is a story about mortality, about the fleeting nature of childhood dreams and innocence, and about the questions everyone faces about their personal worth. For Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, the every day thoughts and obligations that distract most people from these existential questions -- family, career, etc. -- don't exist. The purpose of their lives is laid out before them, as is the expiration date. There is no apparent desire on their part to escape or prevent their fate. All they have is their humanity, and coming to grips with it is the only real struggle they have to face.
The book is a near masterpiece, in my opinion. Ishiguro's writing style manages to casual, free-flowing and extremely profound all at the same time. He manages to quell the reader's outrage at the characters' predicament and focus on the internal and universal questions they face by drawing out the details over time, by examining the world through the conditioned eyes of the lead character. The relatively short story strikes so many emotional chords that I found myself tearing up on more than one occasion and for a few days after reading, I was haunted by the profound and sad eloquence of it all.
The movie is good. In fact, it is very good. Honestly, had I not read the book first, or if more time had passed in between, I may have enjoyed the movie a lot more. While some elements of the story are trimmed for the purpose of streamlining the film, the adaptation is faithful both in terms of the narrative and tone. Truthfully, I wish that more adaptations of great books were done with such devotion to the source material.
The movie also features outstanding performances by Carey Mulligan as Kathy, Keira Knightly as Ruth, and Andrew Garfield as Tommy. It is beautifully shot and, all in all, very well executed. But, in the end, it didn't deliver on the emotional goods like the novel did. So, I had to dock it a half star.
Ultimately, I'd recommend both the movie and the book. Though, I think I'd recommend that you spread the two out more than I did.
No comments:
Post a Comment