Never Let Me Go is a 2010 British dystopian science fiction romantic drama film based on Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel of the same name. The film was directed by Mark Romanek from a screenplay by Alex Garland. Never Let Me Go is set in alternative history and centres on Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, portrayed by Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield, respectively, who become entangled in a love triangle. Principal photography began in April 2009. Filming locations included Andrew Melville Hall and Forest School, Walthamstow.Forest School (website) The film was produced by DNA Films and Film4 on a US$15 million budget.

Prior to the book's publication, Garland had approached Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich about a possible film, and wrote a 96-page script. The producers initially had trouble finding an actress to play Kathy. Mulligan was cast in the role after Peter Rice, the head of the company financing the film, recommended her by text message while watching her performance in An Education. Mulligan, a fan of the book, enthusiastically accepted the role, as she had long desired to play the part. The film's message and themes were the factors that attracted Garfield to the film.

Never Let Me Go premiered at the 37th annual Telluride Film Festival in September 2010, where the audience responded positively to its message. The film was also screened at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, and it opened the 53rd London Film Festival. The film was distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures to cinemas in the United States on 15 September 2010, where it was given a limited release. It opened on 14 January 2011 in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Never Let Me Go opened at four theatres, grossing over US$111,000 during its first weekend. The movie got off to a better start in its first weekend in the UK, earning £625,000 and taking ninth place at the box office.

Never Let Me Go earned US$9.5 million at the box office and an additional US$1.89 million in DVD sales revenue. Never Let Me Go was met with generally positive reviews from film critics, with most reviewers praising its portrayals.

Plot A medical breakthrough in the 1950s has, by the late 1960s, extended human lifespan beyond 100 years. In 1978, the young Kathy H, along with her friends Tommy D and Ruth C, spent their childhood at Hailsham, a traditional boarding school. The teachers, called guardians, encourage students to be health-conscious and create artwork, the best of which is accepted into The Gallery run by the mysterious Madame. They have little contact with the world beyond the school fences. Miss Lucy, a new guardian, tells her class they exist to be organ donors and are destined to die, or complete, early in their adulthoods; she is fired by the headmistress, Miss Emily. Kathy grows attracted to Tommy, but Ruth wins him for herself despite having teased him.

Seven years later, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, now young adults, are rehoused in the Cottages on a farm. They are allowed to drive on day trips, but remain reclusive, lacking social skills and resigned to their fate. They meet others from similar schools who claim that Hailsham students are privileged, and it is revealed that they are all clones. They discuss rumours of organ donations deferrals that might be granted to clones in love, and the nature of the people they were cloned from, whom they unsuccessfully search for in books and out at the seaside. Tommy, still partnered with Ruth, is convinced that The Gallery serves as verification for deferrals since artwork reveals the soul, and he laments his lack of creativity. Ruth spites a lonely Kathy, claiming that Tommy never thought of her as more than a friend. Kathy leaves, enlisting as a post-operative carer for fellow clones.

Nine years on, Kathy has watched many donors gradually die as their organs are harvested. Having not seen Ruth or Tommy since she left the Cottages, she comes across Ruth, frail after two donations. They seek out Tommy to make a nostalgic seaside trip. Ruth reveals that she only seduced Tommy because she was afraid to be alone; she is consumed with guilt and wishes to help Tommy and Kathy seek a deferral. She leaves them with the address of Madame, who she believes has the power to help them, and later dies on the operating table. Kathy and Tommy enter a relationship, and Tommy explains to Kathy, now his carer, that he has been creating artwork in the hope of earning their deferral. The couple bring it to Madame, but she remains distant, and invites Miss Emily to speak. They reveal that deferrals are indeed a myth, and that the gallery was created to affirm the basic humanity of clones as an appeal for their ethical treatment. Hailsham, now shut down, was the last institution to value young clones as "all but human". Kathy and Tommy leave in silence, but Tommy explodes with grief and anger mid-journey, as he used to as a child. Tommy dies on his fourth donation, leaving Kathy alone as hers begin. Contemplating the ruins of her childhood, she questions in voice-over how different her life has been from that of normal people.

Cast

Themes Director Mark Romanek has highlighted that everyone must clarify a relationship with their own mortality: either go against it or find a way around it, as the character Tommy does, the clones' acquiescence echoing aspects of original author Ishiguro's British Japanese background. Romanek hoped the audience of Never Let Me Go would be reminded of what is important: love, behaviour, and friendships. He recalled an email from one viewer: "I saw your film and it made me cry and I haven't reacted to a film emotionally like that in years. And I called my father, cause I realized I hadn't spoken to him in 3 weeks and I told him how much I love him and how much I appreciated what a good father he's been."

Andrew Garfield claims the story of Never Let Me Go to be about humans, and exploring "what it is to have a soul, and how you prove what a soul is"; he says he enjoys the way the film is a "call to arms" about the positives of life. He said that it could remind people that every morning they can choose whether to pursue their own activities, or do what they should do, or do what they are obliged to do. Keira Knightley feels that the film's story is alarming, but has said that the film is "more about humanity's ability to look the other way". "You know in fact that your morals can go out the window if you think you can survive in a certain way, whatever your morals may be."

Animal activist Jon Hochschartner draws parallels between clone farming and the commodity status of animals. The character Tommy compares the fate of clones to farmed animals: "I suppose you both heard that Hailsham is closed. The only schools left now—you hear they’re like battery farms," he says, suggesting that other institutions treat donor children exceptionally badly.

Production

Development Alex Garland, a long-time friend of Ishiguro, asked the author for the rights to the novel before he had finished reading it. Before the novel was published in 2005, Garland had already written a script for a possible film. He gave the screenplay to two producers, Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich, and development started at that moment. "We are delighted to be shooting this special project, which Alex Garland first brought to us before the book's publication in 2005." The script for the film was 96 pages long and divided into chapters. Director Mark Romanek was originally attached to The Wolfman, but when he was dropped from that production for an unknown reason, he accepted the offer to work on Never Let Me Go. The movie was made into a dystopian drama. Romanek was glad to get the opportunity to shoot this film: "From the moment I finished [reading] the novel, it became my dream to film it. Ishiguro's conception is so daring, so eerie and beautiful. Alex Garland's adaptation is sensitive and precise. The cast is perfect, the crew superb." The Seattle Times observed that the project was "something of a departure" for the novelist, noting that it merges Ishiguro's signature "elegant prose with a decidedly science-fiction theme".

Garland, who has explored science fiction themes in his previous work, was a sounding board for ideas for the novel and an early reader of the book. Ishiguro stated that, despite Garland's screenwriting skills and previous experience with film, they did not discuss the idea of a film until after the novel was complete. "I try not to think about things like that when writing a novel—in fact, quite the reverse", he stated. He said that he attempts to "go for something... very interior, following thoughts and memories, something that I think is difficult to do on the screen, which is essentially a third-person medium." Thus he was surprised when Garland, after reading a complete version of the book, said he would like to try to adapt it. Ishiguro recalled that Garland wrote a draft very quickly and immediately asked for his opinion "as a first go". Ishiguro was very satisfied with Garland's screenplay—which was changed very little from its initial draft to the filmed version—and with the final film. When asked to compare the experience with that of The Remains of the Day, he acknowledged that both were more hands-on with this film. Romanek said that he did not make Never Let Me Go a science fiction film; rather, he was presenting a love story with fictional science context mixed in. He described the film as telling a "love story where the science fiction is this subtle patina on the story." The filmmaker explained that had they done the film with "science fiction-y things", it would have been more openly, with props such as futuristic structures and devices.

Casting Carey Mulligan plays the narrator, Kathy, an introverted, observant character who projects both innocence and knowingness and who over the course of the story develops from a passionate, optimistic child to a wise and accepting young woman. Before her casting, Mulligan had already read the novel a few times, considering it a favourite. She recalled that from when she first read the book three years ago she had wanted to play Kathy.Rachel Abramowitz 'Never Let Me Go' comes to the screen—and Carey Mulligan learns to drive Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 30 July 2010. The young actress said that she could not "bear the idea of anyone else" portraying Kathy, although she acknowledged that she thought other people would be able to do a better performance. She was certain that someone would make a film adaptation of the novel and had hoped that they would wait until she was old enough to play the character. Romanek told The Los Angeles Times that he originally was having difficulty finding the right actress to play Kathy; a tight filming deadline loomed before Mulligan's casting. Peter Rice, the head of Fox Searchlight (the company financing the film) was watching An Education at the Sundance Film Festival in January. He wrote Romanek a four-word text message: "Hire the genius Mulligan." When later asked why the message was so abrupt, he explained that he was still in the middle of viewing the film. Rice exhibited what was described as a "rare foresight" in greenlighting a film with an almost unknown lead actress. "He just knew that she was it", said Romanek.