Never Let Me Go (2010)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 163
Fresh: 115 | Rotten: 48
With Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek has delivered a graceful adaptation that captures the spirit of the Ishiguro novel -- which will be precisely the problem for some viewers.
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Critic Reviews: 33
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 11
With Never Let Me Go, Mark Romanek has delivered a graceful adaptation that captures the spirit of the Ishiguro novel -- which will be precisely the problem for some viewers.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 34,151
My Rating
Movie Info
Director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) and writer Alex Garland (28 Days Later) team up to adapt Remains of the Day author Kazuo Ishiguro's introspective sci-fi novel about a group of unsuspecting boarding-school students who make a horrifying discovery about themselves. Sheltered teens Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Ruth (Keira Knightley), and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) all grew up at a remote English boarding school, and now they're hungry to explore the real world. Their dreams of freedom are soon
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Cast
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Keira Knightley
Ruth -
Andrew Garfield
Tommy -
Carey Mulligan
Kathy -
Charlotte Rampling
Miss Emily -
Nathalie Richard
Madame -
Sally Hawkins
Miss Lucy -
Andrea Riseborough
Chrissie -
Domhnall Gleeson
Rodney
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Never Let Me Go Trailer & Photos
All Critics (165) | Top Critics (34) | Fresh (116) | Rotten (48) | DVD (3)
Pretty, empty, and immediately forgettable.
Top CriticNever Let Me Go is gorgeous. And depressing. It's exquisitely acted. And depressing. It's romantic, profound and superbly crafted, shot with the self-contained radiance of a snow globe. And it's depressing.
Oddly cold and detached, as if director Mark Romanek and screenwriter Alex Garland couldn't decide precisely how to interpret Kazuo Ishiguro's popular novel and so they just laid it out flat. And flat it feels.
Never Let Me Go, director Mark Romanek's introspective adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, is a work of subtle beauty -- a melancholy meditation on the finality of life and the choices we make as our time shortens.
Never Let Me Go is strangely moving and mournful, but I wish more had been made of the beauty these people are relinquishing, if only as a counterweight to all that artful drear.
The emotional impact creeps up on the reader only gradually. Then, bam, it hits forcefully, memorably, and, yes, never lets us go.
Melancholy, poignant and chilling
I came to this film knowing nothing about it, except that it was based on the highly-acclaimed novel by Kazuo Ishiguru. I had no foreknowledge of its story or premise-and I'm glad...
Melancholy and futility define this subtle future-set drama about three children who grow up knowing that they'll never own themselves or their own bodies.
Although [the] film adaptation does indeed fall short of the brilliance of the source material (and will likely distance viewers even more than the book ever did), it manages to convey the novel's most important themes, and most affecting moments.
Mark Romanek manages to make that very real(ish) world look and feel totally alien and hermetically sealed, a gray/blue/green/brown tragedy terrarium that both perfectly colorless and incredibly, inescapably sad.
It's also a film which affirms what is valuable about life. I think this film is a must-see.
Though often moving at a glacial pace, this mood piece -- aptly described as a refined romantic drama with a cerebral sci-fi twist -- rarely stays in the same place for long.
We are rewarded with many scenes of poignant beauty and touching performances in the central roles.
Director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) gives the slow-burning adult drama a nostalgic, almost lyrical glow where hope and acceptance override any impulse to rebel or even question.
Whilst I was intrigued by certain elements, I left the theatre with a feeling of disappointment. It was like I hadn't seen the whole story.
As a triangular love story, this doesn't really soar either, despite good performances from a hip young cast, and the end result is that a story that should have been terribly affecting, isn't.
Real men will see this and weep, as I did. It is one of the most moving and profound films in a long time.
It is a downer -- a heavy downer -- there's absolutely no denying that. I recommend it highly, but not if you're looking at something light to cheer you up.
Driven by terrific lead performances, this achingly beautiful work challenges audiences emotionally and intellectually.
While it's not exactly uplifting, this touching tale effectively tackles confronting questions for mankind with nothing but grace.
Never Let Me Go offers an awful, enduring insight into what it must be like to have your entire being dismissed as well.
Audience Reviews for Never Let Me Go
Super Reviewer
Music-video director Mark Romanek ("One-Hour Photo") keeps trying to break into feature films, but he's having trouble learning the art of film. He composes beautiful sequences, as you'd expect from a music-video man. What he's not learning is the skill of stringing together sequences to make a compelling film. This was his problem with "One-Hour Photo" (2002), and it's his problem with his follow-up film as well.
"Never Let Me Go" had everything going for it: a superb, dark story (based on a Kazuo Ishiguro novel), excellent art direction and cinematography, and a stellar cast. But Romanek couldn't pull it together. Almost every scene is more languid than it needs to be. And, most irritating, each sequence is 30% longer than it should be. Everything is stretched out to the point where the viewer wants to slit his wrists in all the slack periods. After about an hour, I couldn't take it anymore.
How sad, because this really should have been a major film. The central plot depicts a world (an alternative present) where England has created factory farms for humans. Clones are created and raised in remote, isolated boarding schools, until such time as their organs can be harvested for transplant. The main characters (played beautifully by Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield) are clones trying to accept their fate and their short life expectancy.
With a director who knew how to make feature films, "Never Let Me Go" might have been a major film. With Romanek's massive weaknesses as a filmmaker (particularly as an editor), it doesn't come together. Pity. This should have been great. Don't blame Ishiguro or any of the actors.
Super Reviewer
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- Kathy: What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been so different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time.
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- Kathy: It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I'd known, maybe I'd have kept tighter hold of them and not let unseen tides pull us apart.
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- Madame: You poor creatures.
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- Miss Emily: We didn't have to look into your souls, we had to see if you had souls at all.
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- Kathy: It had never occurred to me that our lives, so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I'd known, maybe I'd have kept tighter hold of them.
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- Kathy: "We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."
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Latest News on Never Let Me Go
September 17, 2010:
Critics Consensus: Easy A and The Town Are Certified FreshThis week at the movies, we've got a would-be harlot (Easy A, starring Emma Stone and Stanley...
September 15, 2010:
Mark Romanek Talks Never Let Me GoWith "Never Let Me Go" opening this weekend, now is the perfect time for director Mark Romanek to...
September 14, 2010:
Music Video Directors Who Made the Jump to the Big ScreenWith new films from Mark Romanek and David Fincher on the fall schedule, Bullz-Eye was inspired to...
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Foreign Titles
- Alles, was wir geben mussten (DE)
- Nunca me abandones (ES)
