Never had a movie give me such sadness and dread...

It's an appreciation of the circumstances in which these people might not attempt to escape, or commit suicide if they couldn't, that makes this film so interesting and magnifies the horror of the donor system that it portrays.

How much of our lives do we donate to our employers, our governments and the authorities in general?

How many rebel, how many escape, how many fight for their lives?

I know it's not a perfectly parallel analogy, but it is one of the questions that both the film and book raises, and I think the answer goes some way to explaining why the donors in Never Let Me Go behave the way they do.

You'd rebel, I'd rebel, EVERYONE would rebel. It's just not realistic. It's useful for allegory or as a jumping-off point for exploring other aspects of the human psyche but it's not a story with realistic characters.


~~~~~~~
Please put some dashes above your sig line so I won't think it's part of your dumb post.

If the concept in this film was intriguing to you, then you should check out these other films. As mentioned earlier, the film, "The Island," with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johannsen deal with theme of clones as organ donors.

Other films dealing with ethical issues related to clones and cloning:

1. Blade Runner - one of the most influential films about clones.

2. Moon

3. Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones (in particular, the storyline involving the relationship between Jango Fett and his "son" Boba).

4. Multiplicity - a comedy with Michael Keaton.

5. Artificial Intelligence - not technically a film about clones, but it raises similar issues when a family adopts a robot as a child.

Is it sad, but did you hear her at the end?

Everyone's going to "complete" AKA die.
Everyone wishes they had more time.
Everyone takes their past for granted.

It's really terrible the way they lived, but at the end, she just kind of acknowledged that we're all trapped inside of a cage.

Why didn't they try to escape? Numerous reasons. First off, they've been brought up to believe that the only reason for their existence is to donate. If you can take a child, and raise him to believe he needs to kill himself in the name of Allah, then you can certainly convince a child that the only thing they should do in life is donate organs.

Another reason they don't try to escape? Throughout the movie, you see them scanning microchips implanted in their wrists. Obviously, the corporation involved in this organ harvesting keeps tight monitoring of these people. They have to check into their house every night, and check out every time they leave. I'm assuming that if someone didn't check in, they'd get hunted down.

Yes, I wondered why there were no suicides among the donors. Especially once they got started donating, and really got it that there was no hope for them - that they would just suffer more and more and soon die. Why not end it now instead of going through all that? I know that not everyone can go through with a suicide, since we are, after all, wired for survival. But some people kill themselves, so I would imagine that some of the donors would do so, also. I found myself hoping that Kathy and Tommy would commit suicide together, for exactly the reason you said: *beep* you to everyone who created me for this."

But that wouldn't have been in keeping with the tone of the movie, which was SO understated, and so civilized in its presentation of barbarism. That was one of the things that made this film so powerful. No musical cues to tell you when to be horrified, no gory images (other than brief glimpses of surgical procedures). Instead, the film created this veneer of a polite society and then just let the horror unfold on its own.