Tear Jerky Sunday

(Kathy H, Tommy, and Ruth)

After watching "Never Let Me Go", the first thing that immediately came to my mind was to blog about it but in a different perspective. I am not a film critic. I can't objectively tell whether a movie deserves 5 star rating or not. I know that people who are paid to do this job, reviews the merits of the film in all its aspects whether it has the best plot or storyline, the most convincing actors, the larger than life visual effects, or probably the spectacular costume and moving original theme song that goes with it. I don't really have specific standards that define what a good or bad movie is all about, all I know is that I go the cinema if I want to get away from the real world and enjoy for a moment what the silver screen  has to offer. I like movies that pose a lot of "What If" questions and Never Let Me Go did not let me go of these questions. The story takes you back to the childhood years of Kathy H and her 2 friends Tommy and Ruth at Hailsham, which at first glance seems to be a primitive English boarding school...but only it wasn't. It was more of a state prison housing special students who were genetically altered and are destined to donate their organs to the person they were modeled on or their "originals". Kathy just like any teenage girl had a big crush on her guy friend Tommy. The two had already developed a mutual connection until the evil selfish Ruth came in the picture and ruined the relationship. Tommy eventually gave in to Ruth's trap. Ruth gets the guy while Kathy H devastatingly lost her true love.

I started forming the "What If?" questions when the sad part of the story began, this was when the new guardian (who got fired because of her big but kind and concerned mouth) finally told her senior students their real purpose...that they will not be able to fulfill what they wanted to do with their lives because they will die at an early age...they were born to donate their body parts to people who rightfully own them. And so I tried to put myself in the characters' shoes and asked these questions... 
 ...What if one day someone knocks at my door and gives me a notice that my left eye is due for donation, what will I do? Will the eye patch be an enough cover to protect me from being ridiculed?

...What if they want both my legs? How will I play the sports I dearly enjoy?
...What if they want my hands? How will I feel the joy and passion of touch?
...What if they want my liver on the day I plan to propose to the one I truly love? Will I still continue with the proposal? How will I say to her that I want to marry her but I can't because I'm dying...


There was a stage of completion in the lives of the donors. This is when they will have to donate a third organ. Ironically, completion means death in the story. All three main characters died. Ruth was first. Tommy came in next and this happened at the time when he and Kathy H rekindled their lost love. It was just too late... They were meant to die.


At the end of the movie I had stupid and cheesy What if questions in mind:
...What if medical breakthrough indeed allows us to donate any body part and still survives, what am I willing to give?
...What if  I give my heart...
    Will I still fall in love? 
    Will I still feel the joy and pain of falling in and out of love?
    Will I now love intelligently knowing that I'm using my mind and not my heart?