'Easy A' Movie Review

Philosophically provocative and achingly sad, "Never Let Me Go" manages to touch the mind and the heart at once, and with equal measure. Longtime video director Mark Romanek, whose last feature was the haunting "One Hour Photo" from 2002, has made a film that's sumptuously gorgeous and filled with sterling performances. The textures, the lighting - everything is carefully crafted but never stuffy, and, at times, even a little gritty in an appealing way.

But, based on the novel by acclaimed "Remains of the Day" author Kazuo Ishiguro, "Never LetMe Go" also raises intriguing questions about medical ethics and the nature of humanity itself. Some may find its tone suffocatingly heavy, and the score can feel a bit melodramatic and intrusive here and there. But if you give into it, you'll find yourself sucked into this melancholy alternate world, an ambitious hybrid of sci-fi drama and coming-of-age romance set in a British boarding school. That's where the tale begins in the late '70s, at the exclusive Hailsham, where headmistress Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling) reminds the children they're special in a tone that's so stern and full of conviction, it almost sounds as if she's scolding rather than encouraging them. Prime among the students are Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, whose tentative love triangle at age 11 will form the film's dramatic arc (as adults, they're played by Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley). In adapting Ishiguro's book, screenwriter Alex Garland ("28 Days Later") reveals the mystery of the children's unusual existence slowly and suspense fully, through details and gestures that are small and spare.

We know something's different about them: their fear of leaving the school grounds, the daily pills and bottles of milk lined up for them to consume, the bracelets that monitor their comings and goings. But only after a new teacher arrives, played with subtlety and sympathy by Sally Hawkins, do we (and they) learn their true purpose.