Filed under: Published film reviews | Tags: Alex Garland, Carey Mulligan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Keira Knightley
Kathy (Carey Mulligan) is a woman looking back on her childhood days at Hailsham boarding school with best friends Ruth (Keira Knightley) and Tommy (Andrew Garfield). Like the other Hailsham pupils, the three have a destiny that together, they grow to understand, and struggle to accept.
Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel of the same name, the story is, technically, science fiction, even as the film initially feels like a coming-of-age romance. Adapted from the book by Alex Garland, himself an author (28 Days Later, The Beach), we are told immediately of a medical breakthrough in the 1960’s which has dramatically extended human life expectancy, and we see the pupils of the school wearing a wrist band to enter/exit and that they keep through adulthood, so even as we know that we’re not in a ‘normal’ environment, the genre of the film is not revealed quickly.
These characters are entrapped, but they’re not searching for escape. There are deeper, more personal things at stake, which is why this story is so profoundly sad. This is beautifully realised adaptation of intelligent science fiction with very good direction and casting.
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Victoria Jelinek 