BEFORE: OK, so here's a movie that I've passed on TWICE already this year - maybe even three times. It would have fit somewhere in February, in between "An Education" and "Happy-Go-Lucky" because it's got Sally Hawkins in it, but then I determined the plot-line didn't sound like it belonged in the romance chain. Then I could have linked to it from "Tick, Tick...Boom!" because of Andrew Garfield, but the problem there was I needed to get to my Easter film, and I couldn't do that if I dropped this one in there. Then Carey Mulligan showed up in "Promising Young Woman", but I couldn't drop this film in there next to that one, because I needed to follow the Alfred Molina link instead, to get to Mother's Day in time. So it's been a real run of bad luck for this film, here in the year of the constant re-scheduling.
Good news, both Carey Mulligan AND Andrew Garfield have come around again, so by rescheduling this film again and again, I was really freeing it up to be HERE, to connect "The Dig" with tomorrow's film. See? It all works out in the end, or at least it looks that way.
Speaking of which, here's an updated list of the links that will get me to the end of the month: Andrew Garfield, Jessica Chastain, Colin Farrell, Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent, Donald Sumpter, James D'Arcy, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mark Strong. Then I'll print the new list of links on June 1, which is going to look a bit like the old May list of links, only in reverse.
THE PLOT: The lives of three friends, from their early school days into young adulthood, when the reality of the world they live in comes knocking.
AFTER: If you don't read a bit ahead in the plot summary on Wikipedia, then you might not know what's going on in this film at first. So, umm, SPOILER ALERT just in case it's possible for me to spoil a film that was released in 2010. Hey, if you haven't tracked down a film after 12 years, it's likely you weren't going to get around to watching this one, or you would have by now. Anyway, you've been warned, I can't talk about this film without umm, talking about it.
Nothing seems all that amiss at first, there's a quick shot of one lead character watching another one being prepared for surgery, nope, nothing wrong there, that's a common enough occurence, right? Except she thinks to herself about being a "carer" and hoping to be a "giver" in due time, without really explaining the difference. An on-screen graphic also explains this is a world where a medical breakthrough discovered in 1952 has allowed the average human lifespan to be extended past 100 years. Ah, but what IS it? We'll find out soon enough...
The film whips back in time to the leads in boarding school, again it's a common enough scene in the U.K. from the 1960's or 1970's, but this is really an alternate timeline where some medical miracle has been discovered, and it makes these students special in some way, special enough for them to be removed from society and not allowed to interact with it. What they know about the outside world comes from a sort of acting class, where they practice things like going in to a tea shop and ordering tea, or perhaps coffee. No, wait, water - in fact it seems like they're all just going through the motions, and the difficult part for them is having a want, or a preference, or an opinion, like they've all been told that this is not something that they deserve. What is really going on here?
Ah, at some point one of the teachers can't stand the secret any more, and she tells the children that they're being raised for a special purpose, they exist to be givers and at some point there are people somewhere else who will need them to donate something, and it's not going to be easy. They won't get to grow up and have lives of their own, the only reason that they have any life at all is to grow replacement organs to be harvested. That teacher then disappears and is not seen again by the children.
Ah, so maybe it's cloning? Cloning was invented earlier in this timeline, and humanity decided to make full use of it, and these are the future donors, and how long they'll live depends on the health of the originals, and what organs they may need, and at what times.
Naturally, there's a love triangle (THIRD one this week, in a row, but who's counting?) as Ruth falls in bed with Tommy, but we later learn she's only doing it to keep him away from Kathy. As teenagers the children are moved from the boarding school to farm cottages and are allowed to leave on day trips, but must check back in every night. And a select few are allowed to apply to become "carers", which are givers who travel around and visit the other givers who are in hospital making donations. Kathy signs on to become a carer, and this helps her deal with the fact that she loves Tommy, but he's sleeping with someone else.
Later on, Ruth regrets her decision, and encourages Tommy and Kathy to get together and enjoy whatever time they have left, following Tommy's first round of "donation". After two or three rounds of donations, a giver usually "completes", which of course is a euphemism for no longer being able to survive after that round of donation.
There have been rumors for years about "deferrals", which could occur if two givers fall in love and are able to prove it to the people in charge, then they could defer their donations for a few years and spend more time together before the harvesting. However, the people who grew up in one school heard a rumor about the deferrals in the other school, which makes everyone wonder if the deferrals even exist at all. And why were the children encouraged to make drawings which would be displayed in some art gallery? The rumors are that only through the drawings could the givers prove that they had souls, were worthy of love, and thus eligible for a deferral.
I can't help but think that this is all a big metaphor for something, I mean that clock is ticking for all of us, we start dying shortly after we're born, and it's inevitable. Even if you love someone very deeply, that's not going to delay aging or death, it's only going to make the journey easier to handle, ideally. I suppose there are questions here about the ethics of organ donations, and this explains why the most vital organs only come from recently deceased donors, living donors can only give up something they have two of, like a kidney, or something they can split, like a liver. A living person giving up a heart would be WAY out of bounds in our world, but not in this fictional one.
The larger question becomes, why did these donors complete their agreements, once they lived on their own, and had access to a CAR? Why didn't they just drive away and start again somewhere else, under another name? Well, that's where the school came in, they'd been programmed by the school to accept their fates, perhaps they were told that without the organ donation program, they wouldn't exist at all, so they needed to just make the most out of their short lives and be grateful for what time they had. And again, I feel like maybe that's a metaphor for all living people, not just the ones bred for their organs.
But I've got a bigger NITPICK POINT, perhaps this question might be answered in the novel this is based on, but then again, perhaps not. How does cloning and harvesting the organs from the clones prevent such diseases as cancer, which are no longer prevalent in this alternate timeline? The headmistress justifies the practice by saying that "nobody wants to return to the days of lung cancer and breast cancer and motor neuron disease..." and we're told that the average lifespan since the "medical miracle" is now over 100. OK, so I can see that if an "original" gets lung cancer, the damaged lung could be replaced by one from the clone - but that's not PREVENTING cancer, that's just getting rid of the affected organ. That original could go on to get cancer somewhere else in their body, OK, swap out another organ, but eventually those organs are going to run out, and then what? Raise another clone? It could be too late at that point. And again, swapping out the organs might eliminate the individual cancer, but it could not be regarded as taking steps to prevent, reduce or eliminate it worldwide.
Also starring Keira Knightley (last seen in "The Aftermath"), Andrew Garfield (last seen in "Tick, Tick, Boom!"), Sally Hawkins (last seen in "Happy-Go-Lucky"), Andrea Riseborough (ditto), Charlotte Rampling (last seen in "Dune"), Nathalie Richard, Domhnall Gleeson (last seen in "Crash Pad"), Isobel Meikie-Small, Ella Purnell (last seen in "Churchill"), Charlie Rowe (last seen in "Rocketman"), Kate Bowes Renna, Hannah Sharp, Christina Carrafiell, Oliver Parsons, Luke Bryant, Fidelis Morgan (last seen in "A Little Chaos"), Damien Thomas (last seen in "W.E."), David Sterne, Lydia Wilson (last seen in "All Is True"), Monica Dolan (also carrying over from "The Dig"), Chidi Chickwe (last seen in "Filth"), Caroline Garnell.
RATING: 5 out of 10 songs on a Judy Bridgewater cassette
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