I just watched Never Let Me Go and I was left thinking about how utterly human it is. Within the minutes following, I am left thinking about what that means to me, what it takes for something to be human.It didn't take long for me to start comparing it to Atonement. The similarities are vast, but there are a few things that cross over between them (other than Keira Knightley) that cause them to permeate my soul. Jealousy, pain, lovers who will never be together, death, and the need to find redemption and forgiveness. The combination of such things to me is sort of my weak point. A script that could tie all these together would automatically shoot to the top of my "this needs to be made" list. And I would want to direct it.
The ending monologue Carey Mulligan's character has was what really hit the hardest for me.
"What I'm not sure about, is if our lives have been any different from the lives of the people we save. We all complete. Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time."
At the end of the film, there was nothing more potent that could have been said, done, seen, heard, or spoken. It reminded me, in some way, of Briony's final monologue at the end of Atonement, although this is where the films differ.
"So, my sister and Robbie were never able to have the time together they both so longed for, and deserved. And which ever
since, I’ve…ever since I’ve always felt I prevented. But, what sense of hope or satisfaction could a reader derive from an ending like that? So in the book I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out on in life. I’d like to think this isn’t weakness or evasion. But a final act of kindness I gave them: their happiness."Never Let Me Go chose to end on a note of defeat, but having come to terms with the life that had been laid out before them. Atonement chose to end on the happy ending that life had deprived the characters of. And both, to me, were so very completely human. I lack any other way to truly describe them.
Atonement still remains my favorite film. The first time I saw it I was so overpowered by it that when I woke up the next morning, I began crying again. Watching Joe Wright's commentary on it changed a few things for me, but it only further solidified my love for this film. He doesn't like sad endings (has he seen this movie? Sad ending!) and then as I thought about it, I understood. For as heartbreaking as Atonement is, it actually ends happily. We are given the one thing we always wanted that life, or perhaps death, had stolen away.
There is one thing that both leave me with; the sense that life is painful and beautiful, and that death is equally so in quite a different way. Life, love, and death are so very human.
