Hacker Cinema
Never Let Me Go
2010 · Film · 104 min
Directed by Mark Romanek
As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy spend their childhood at an idyllic and secluded English boarding school. As they grow into adults, they must come to terms with the complexity and strength of their love for one another while also preparing for the haunting reality awaiting them.
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11 comments on Hacker News
Good sci-fi has always been few and far between. I love sci-fi, but I also dislike a lot of it because a lot of it's not well written from a prose craft or character depth point of view. When it is, it's probably my favorite genre.
I feel like we're lucky to get one outstanding sci-fi book or series per decade.
I'll rattle off some notable books and films/TV (or in some cases both) from the last 20 years. Some of these overlap with other genres like horror, lit-fic, etc., but I consider them all sci-fi to some degree. Some are well known and some are obscure.
The Expanse, Europa Report, Moon, Primer, The Arrival, Never Let Me Go, For All Mankind (the unofficial Expanse prequel), Sleep Dealer (indie film that stuck with me), The Color Out of Space (2019 film of Lovecraft's story), Banshee Chapter, The Peripheral, Blindsight, Annihilation, I'm sure I could keep going...
Thanks for bringing that up, it's probably time got for me to reread the Vorkosigan Saga.
And you also reminded me of the flawed but moving film "Never Let Me Go" from 2010 about a more present version of this. Oh, and there's also Michael Bay's "The Island".
The film "Never Let Me Go"[0] is kind of about that.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(2010_film)
And Never Let Me Go, which was also made into a movie I believe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)
If you want to explore the concept further, I suggest you watch the movie "Never Let Me Go" (2010). The premise is very similar, apart from the fact there's no secret or conspiracy about it, children are just grown to become sacrificial organ donors, and since it's socially accepted, there's no way out of it.
Fair warning: it's pretty depressing.
Read “never let me go” by Kazuo Ishiguro, or actually even watch the movie that was made of it (same title)
That illustrates fairly well why having an underclass who provides healthy organs to the rich is a utterly barbaric idea.
> yet they are all accepting (perhaps that is too strong) or passive. No volition to change the status quo.
The DVD of the film adaptation of Never Let Me Go has an interesting interview with Ishiguro. In it, he mentions that he is often asked about why the Students were so passive and accepting of their fate. From memory, he says that the book is allegorical: the students are no more able the escape their kind of mortality than we are of our (different) outcome. Nobody can escape from their own life.
Never Let Me Go is an excellent example of the maxim that an idea is worth 1% and execution is worth 99%. It is brilliant, haunting, beautiful and tragic--one of the best books I've ever read--yet it shares its central conceit with a truly awful Michael Bay movie.
+1 for Never Let Me Go. I read it last week and found it very moving. Mark Romanek's film version is excellent too.
Another answer is in the movie "Never Let Me Go", one of the most bleak movies ever made.
Sorry this is such a long list, but I watch a lot of films.
"Martha Marcy May Marlene" - a gentle exploration of someone broken after living with a cult
"Never Let Me Go" - A film you can push a lot of meaning into if you want to. I love the acting of Carey Mulligan
"Shame" - Michael Fassbender is amazing in this, as is Carey Mulligan
"Catfish" - an amazing documentary about people who lie on the Internet, but a gentle and kind version, not the obvious "OMG THESE PEOPLE ARE NUTTERS".
"End of Watch" - 'found footage' style police thing. I really liked it for not forcing a traditional plot and pacing on the audience.
"Margin Call" - financial collapse and amorality. Not many films show business in any kind of sensible way. While this movie probably doesn't it avoids most of the cliches other films make.
"Beasts of the Southern Wild" - I'm disappointed this missed out on awards.
"Take This Waltz" - Seth Rogan playing straight might be scary, but he's pretty good as the husband who's wife falls out of love with him. Sarah Silverman makes a surprisingly good appearance (I guess her bit at the end of the film makes it worth it). Directed by Sarah Polley who is, IMO, amazing.