when i watched Never Let Me Go last night, i knew i was going to see a beautiful film. Director Mark Romanek has always impressed me with his music videos, and his previous film, One Hour Photo, was gorgeous, even though super creepy. but the thing that really caught me off guard was the acting.
for a leading role, Carey Mulligan doesn’t really do/say much. sure there’s a voiceover, but the thing that really makes this is an amazing, under-appreciated and completely underrated film is the body language. her embodiment of Kathy H. goes down to her eye movements, the twitches in her cheeks, the subtle swell of tears. as a film fan, i have always been a sucker for someone who completely commits to the role, and there’s no better example than Carey Mulligan in this film. the sense of stillness, of nothingness, yet conveying emotion by a head movement is something that i really only remember being done well by Kate Winslet in that pre-arguement scene in Revolutionary Road. Mulligan is truly Oscar worthy in this film, and it sucks that no one will ever know that because it’s been almost completely ignored/marketed wrong by Fox Searchlight, which is super surprising.
while Carey Mulligan is a force, both Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightly show their chops in ways you didn’t really think were possible. the depth and layered meanings of this storyline/book/film are conveyed so well through such detail and lack of movement instead of just throwing it right in front of the audience that i really have no comparison towards any other film doing it as well as this. the music by Rachel Portman was also astonishing. sometimes there was complete silence, sometimes this soft violin would accompany establishing set piece shots, but watching it, it was mesmerizing.
the film is so haunting, calculated when trying to convey a moral about the human condition and it’s effect on love & death that i really can’t get over it right now, which is why i’m writing this. hopefully you’ll be convinced to watch it, too.
∞