Never Let Me Go

I occasionally go on Roger Ebert's website to look for new good movies to watch. I had never heard of Never Let Me Go before, but he gave it four stars. I read the first paragraph oh his review, which was part of a synopsis. It sounded interesting so I stopped reading, I don't like to spoil things for myself.

I'm not going to lie, I was tempted to go back and finish the review or read the Wikipedia plot synopsis after I finished watching the movie. I think it was a combination of just not getting some of it, not paying attention to the first bit (I was reviewing Megamind), and the movie leaves some questions unanswered. Alas, I have not gone in search of more information, so my review will be based on what I got (or did not get) from the movie.

The movie starts with:

"The breakthrough in medical science came in 1952.
Doctors could now cure the previously incurable.
By 1967, life expectancy passed 100 years."

Based on this we know that 1952 has already passed, so this is some sort of alternate reality. I like this because if it happened in 2052 for example, there would be all this futuristic stuff, and I've had enough of that for now. The breakthrough is that (this is a little hazy for me) somehow human kind has discovered how to "make people" assumingly not the regular p in the v sort of way, and these people are then used for their organs. They "complete" (die) usually after 3 or 4 donations (sometimes after only 1). We find out later that this people are "modeled" on other people. People that are prostitutes, trash etc (I assumed so that no one would notice them as these donor people).

Now I have a lot of questions about this. How did they make these donor people? (I could have just as easily missed them explaining this, but as far as I can tell, it's not addressed) As far as I can tell these donor people are pretty darn similar to regular people, why isn't there more of a moral dilemma about this whole thing? Why don't the donor people rebel? The Carey Mulligan character says that she is proud of this system (she is a donor person) and even though she has found true love, she just accepts that he has to die to give away his organs. I would like more specifics about this donor process, and ideally about the people they are donating to, we know nothing of these people! And when a donor "completes" I would like to think that the doctors take all thier organs, but it's never said, and that's something that I would have liked to be outright said, I just want to know for sure that they contributed as much as they could.

All of this is happening under the guise of a love story. Keira Knightly and Carey Mulligan are both in love with Andrew Garfield. Keira gets the guy, and they are together from when they are tweens until young adults. When Keira Knightly is close to dying she apologizes to Carey and Andrew for keeping them apart, that she knew Carey and Andrew belonged together, but she didn't want to be alone. Selfish yes, but why they hell didn't Andrew do something? If Carey was his true love, why didn't he just be with her the whole time? Silly.

I do love how subtle this movie is, it just kind of flows, it just is what it is. I don't know how much that makes sense, but it certainly kept my attention. (And I realize that this is contradictory with my complaining about wanting more details, can't I have it all?!)

I rewatched the first half hour of the movie while writing this, and it didnt help any with any of the questions I had. I know this movie is about a bigger picture, probably something about morality and love, but I am so interested in the idea of these donor people and the logistics, I don't want to focus on love, I want to focus on possibility, would this donor person program ever fly? So with that said, I give this movie:

A good movie but I would like more details!

p.s. I read the Wikipedia entry for this movie and found out that it is based on a book. Maybe I'll find more answers there!