Dir. Mark Romanek, UK/USA, 2010, 104 mins
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield
Review by Carol Allen
The film is based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, set in an alternative England , where a medical breakthrough in the fifties has resulted in a society where previously incurable diseases have been conquered and the normal life expectancy is over a hundred years. But there is a human cost.
Despite what that implies, this is not really a science fiction story. Unlike films like say Gattaca and The Island , where the protagonists fight vigorously against their cruel fate, the characters here accept it. The story is about their normal human experience, most particularly their need for love, played out against the chilling and unethical circumstances that dictate the course of their lives.
The story is told in three acts narrated by 29 year old Kathy (Mulligan). In the first act we meet the main characters as children; Kathy, played as a child by Isobel Meikle-Small, Tommy (Charlie Rowe) and Ruth (Ella Purnell). They are all pupils at an apparently traditional English boarding school, run by a strict though kindly headmistress, Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling). But there is something odd about the place. The children have no surnames and apparently no parents. They never ever leave the school grounds. And there are some strange terms used. Teachers for example are known as guardians. When guardian Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins) reveals to the children that the purpose of their future lives is already laid out for them and those lives will be short ones, she is summarily dismissed. Dominating the three friends’ lives though is the fact that they are reaching adolescence and becoming aware of their emergent sexuality. Kathy forms a relationship with Tommy but her best friend Ruth steps in and takes him away from her.
The second act deals with the group as teenagers, now living in a supervised rural community and allowed some access to the outside world. Tommy and Ruth (now played by Garfield and Knightly) are still a couple. Kathy is their friend but made to feel an outsider by the somewhat bitchy Ruth. And there is a rumour that, if a couple really love each other and can prove it to the authorities, the fate that has been in store for them from the very beginning of their lives can be deferred. It is a fate which the three of them have to face in the third act, when as adults they meet again and the complex relationship between the three of them is resolved.
This is a constantly engrossing, thought provoking and melancholy film. The passivity of the characters in their acceptance of their destiny could irritate some audiences used to more action packed drama. It is though chillingly indicative of the way human beings can be manipulated into assenting to the most appalling of situations. Mulligan is strong as the central character with good support from Garfield and from Knightly, who for once is given a role which does not depend on her startling beauty. As the premise behind the story is gradually revealed, the implications are horrifying. But what touches the heart and makes the film hauntingly memorable is the story of these three touchingly young human beings and their short lives.
