(2010) One month before making her first donation, feeling emotionally drained and physically exhausted at 28 from her ten years of working as a carer of donors, Kathy H (Carey Mulligan) looks backward to her time at Hailsham boarding school in England (having a pre-WWII look) and after that at the Cottages.

In an alternative universe on a brave new world, the human lifespan increased to 100 years by the 1970s. The head guardian, Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling), addresses the children by saying: "Students of Hailsham are special." With Kathy as a compassionate preadolescent (Isobel Meikel-Small) are her friends Ruth (Ella Purnell) and Tommy D (Charlie Rowe), who has angry outbursts from others teasing him about his lack of talent in sport and arts.

They've been told horrific stories of children who've died after going outside the perimeter boundaries of the grounds. Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins), a naïve new guardian, encourages her fourth-year students, who conduct themselves with conformity, to be creative and individualistic. Then one day, appearing distraught, she says to her class: "The problem, as I see it, is that you've been told and not told" about when you grow up. Miss Lucy is summarily dismissed for "deliberate subversion."

Along with their new knowledge, they ponder numerous mysteries, including the purpose of Madame's Gallery, into which many of Kathy's art pieces have been accepted. Kathy listens to "Never Let Me Go" on a Judy Bridgewater tape recording of Songs After Dark that Tommy had given her, then watches as he and Ruth become a couple, hoping they'll separate one day.

I found director Mark Romanek's sci-fi drama - executive producer Alex Garland's screenplay adapting Kazuo Ishiguro's novel - profoundly disturbing to watch, gnawing at my gut, about halfway through the movie where the long entrance to the Cottages resembles a photograph of Auschwitz; Rachel Portman's score produces a subtle strain haunting the action.

In 1985 (following Nineteen Eighty-Four) when they are eighteen, Kathy, Tommy D (Andrew Garfield), and Ruth (Keira Knightley) are transferred to the Cottages where they are given greater latitude without supervision to form couples (though Kathy remains solitary), engage in sex, and take automobile excursions into the countryside where they look for Possibles and Originals. "Look in the gutter," exclaims Ruth to Kathy: "That's where we came from!"

Rodney and Chrissie ask the three from Hailsham about a rumor of couples really and truly in love applying for a deferral from donating. Tommy, who made no contributions of his artworks, forms a theory from speculating about the Gallery, telling Kathy that its purpose must be to reveal their souls and their capacity for love. Kathy reminds him that Miss Lucy had once said that the Gallery wasn't important.

After Kathy begins training to become a carer, Tommy and Ruth separate. In 1994 Kathy discovers Ruth as a donor-patient in the recovery center; together they drive to see Tommy, for their first reunion since leaving the Cottages. Frail Ruth makes a peace offering to express her sincere regret for having come between Kathy and Tommy, while he shares his complementary secret. The purpose of these "poor creatures" is saving the lives of others.

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Copyright © 2010 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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