Review of Never Let Me Go (2010) by Dc E — 07 Feb 2012

"Never Let Me Go" 10 Scale Rating: 6.0 (Decent) ...

I went in expecting to see something truly great, but walked away disappointed. Based on a critically acclaimed novel, the concept was great. You just get the feeling that the book is leaps and bounds better than the film offering.

The movie follows three friends as they spend their lives in a boarding school. The school teaches them nothing that will help them later in life, and you learn early on that they are actually all clones and that their school (and others like it) is designed to raise healthy bodies. Their sole purpose? To serve as donors for earth's population until the surgeries eventually kill them. Once the children reach adulthood, they are allowed out into the world in a very limited way. Eventually, they hear a rumor that if a couple can prove that they are completely in love, they will be given a few more years to live before they have to start donating.

The movie is gut-wrenching and sad, which was great. The acting was top notch and you do hope that some of the main characters find a way to survive longer or somehow escape the system.

What really brings the movie down is the pacing. It is extremely slow at times, and then suddenly speeds up and skips around. You can tell that a lot from the novel was left out.

While the ending was pretty good and I enjoyed the idea of the film, it was just too slow (for no real reason) to be truly good.