Warning: This is not a movie review. It’s just my thoughts on the movie, therefore there obviously will be “spoilers”
I watched this movie today, very mislead as to what this movie was about by the description on DSTV. All it said was that it was about a “seemingly idyllic english boarding school” and how these kids would have to face their realities. That scene where the young teacher person tells the kids that they’re bread to be organ donors really shocked me, and that’s when I really started getting into the movie.
The concept is quite clever actually. I mean at the end of the day, it just highlights the cruelty of the human race in a different way. And shows all the ways that people can be dehumanized (even though they were clones of some sort). I think the whole notion of having a soul is quite interesting as well. I mean depending on if you’re religious or not, it is assumed that everything has some sort of soul because it was created by some higher power. But in this case, these people were created by man. It was probably one of the justifications that they used to use these people as machines and then throw them away when they “completed”
It’s quite interesting to note how Hailsham, in my logic, is an evil place because it’s bringing up these children to be harvested for their organs later but further on in the film, it is revealed that it was one of the places that actually questioned the ethics of the whole operation. Carey Mulligan’s character Kathy brings up a good point at the end, that eventually, all humans “complete” and she wonders if the lives that she saves are “worth it” to some extent.
I think what’s really stupid is that how could humans not see this as cruel and how could they question the clones’ ability to feel and have a “soul”. Their clones, meaning they’re identical copies, meaning they have brains and their brains function and think the same. I mean the whole love triangle between Kathy, Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield) is proof that they have real emotions and in fact they are real people.
Some of my favourtie scenes:
The one where Kathy is sitting on her bed listening to Never Let Me Go.
The scene where the new teacher tells the children about their fate and gets dismissed shortly after.
The scene in the woods where Older Kathy and Older Tommy go out and talk about the deferral.
The scene where they all go out for the first time out on the town (The part where they’re sitting at the restaurant is quite funny because they don’t know how to interact with normal people. The awkwardness is appealing)
The scene where Kathy and Tommy have just come back from finding out that the whole deferral thing was just a lie and Tommy gets out of the car and starts screaming. Definitely the most chilling scene in the movie.
It’s definitely a must see. Very powerful. Keep it quirky.
