I have a great deal of faith in this film and believe it will be one of the ten 2010 films nominated for Best Picture. Has anyone else read the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day)? It's stunning. An atmospheric, melancholy, and poignant masterpiece which slowly reveals its sinister storyline. I highly recommend it.

Here is the plot as featured in a Variety article: "Story revolves around three childhood friends who realize much later that they are being groomed for cold, tragic reasons." To say more, as other sites do, would be criminal, IMO.

The film adaptation is directed by music video legend Mark Romanek, whose credits include "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails and "99 Problems" by Jay-Z. His feature-length directorial debut was the well-received sleeper hit One Hour Photo. The screenplay is by British novelist Alex Garland. His past screenwriting credits include 28 Days Later and Sunshine. He also wrote an early draft of the as-yet-unproduced Halo film.

Other key Never Let Me Go crew members include D.P. Adam Kimmel (Capote), editor Barney Pilling (An Education), and production designer Mark Digby (Slumdog Millionaire).

"From the moment I finished the novel, it became my dream to film it. Ishiguro's conception is so daring, so eerie and beautiful. Alex Garland's adaptation is sensitive and precise. The cast is perfect, the crew superb."
-- Romanek

The film's protagonist, Kathy, is portrayed by Carey Mulligan. Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield co-star and the supporting cast includes Sally Hawkins and Charlotte Rampling. Also important are the three actors playing Mulligan, Knightley, and Garfield's characters as children: Izzy Meikle-Small, Ella Purnell, and Charlie Rowe, respectively.

Fox Searchlight is distributing the film. It is set for a November release in the United Kingdom (per this article) and should reach American theatres in November or December.

So, what we have here is a film by a fresh, stylish director and an established, talented screenwriter, based on a celebrated novel, with a cast including two previous Oscar nominees (Mulligan, Knightley) and a Golden Globe winner (Hawkins), distributed by a company very good at turning hype and positive W.O.M. into multiple nominations. I am very confident! Are you? Any thoughts?

My girlfriend read it and told me a lot about it. Seems more fittig for acting nominations and maybe some techs than a BP nom, though.

It's definitely going to figure into the acting categories. I expect a second Best Actress nomination for Mulligan.

The novel is so powerful, though. It transcends the horror/science fiction elements (which don't scream BP, you're right) with so much beautiful atmosphere, mystery, and emotion. I am intrigued by the possibilities and of this year's contenders, I am most excited to see where this goes.

Carey Mulligan? I'm there.

I loooove that book.

I would love to see Carey Mulligan get another Lead nod, while either Keira Knightley and/or Sally Hawkins get supporting nods.

Yeah, it doesn't scream Best Picture though, and the worst-case scenario is Adapted Screenplay (and a Cinematography nom if it captures the feel of the novel).

I still see BP potential. This type of movie can be part of the Best Picture conversation in this new ten-film era. It will definitely have passionate support if it lives up to the brilliance of the novel. And with the talent involved, I believe it will.

And Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Actress (Mulligan) are a must.

I would lean Hawkins for Best Supporting Actress. She won't have as big a role, but it could end up being the more powerful role. Plus she was strangely snubbed for Happy-Go-Lucky a few years ago, so there's a "due" factor.

This is neat.

Soho's members clubs, coffee shops and pubs were abuzz last week as the second edition of the Brit List, which details the most respected unproduced movie scripts by non-American writers, was released and pinged from BlackBerry to BlackBerry, hitting Hollywood almost instantly.

The eagerly anticipated list, inspired by Hollywood's Black List of best unproduced scripts, was voted on anonymously by more than 40 top-level figures in the U.K. and Irish film industries. Agents, producers, sales agents, distributors, studio execs and public funders provide up to 10 titles for voting on the privately circulated list. This year's list features 46 scripts from 160 original choices, all chosen from scripts that were not shooting at the time of the list's circulation.

[...]

Mike Lesslie's "War Reporting for Cowards" follows "Jane Eyre" with seven votes. Four writers each received six votes; Dennis Kelly ("Blackout"), Shawn Slovo ("Bobby Fischer Goes to War"), Lydia Adetunji ("Necropolis") and Alex Garland ("Never Let Me Go"). Toby Finley bagged five nods for "Canyonland" and there are nine scripts which pulled four votes.

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111799 ... =2523&cs=1

It's great to hear the script is respected and reads well.

It's been announced Oscar-winning (Emma, 1996) composer Rachel Portman will score the film. She was also nominated for her Cider House Rules and Chocolat scores.

I ordered the book. Sounds very interesting, and Mulligan being in the movie has me excited.

I hope you love the novel. I am sure you will.

First photo (above) and comments from Romanek and Mulligan: http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2010/03 ... -plus.html

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I love Carey's comments on the novel. The last few words are definitely devastating.

There is a test screening review on AICN. It's very positive. Praise for the actors, comparisons to Children of Men, etc. Warning, though: MAJOR, MAJOR, MAJOR spoilers. The person dedicates a few paragraphs to outlining the plot from beginning to end.

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/42477

well thanks for posting all this! I've now got an Oscar season movie that I'm really looking forward to.

If like the book this will be depressing as hell.

You've read it yourself, Lecter?

And, yes, it should be an extremely melancholy and haunting film.

All right: Andrew Garfield will win Best Supporting Actor. And it will win Best Adapted Screenplay.

I'm shocked at how bland that trailer was. It looks like tailor made Oscar bait.

I kind of agree with that. I think it looks very good, but was expecting the trailer to be better.

Anyway, with ten nominations, this could get a Best Picture nom. But at this moment I'd say no. Might snag a couple of acting nominations, but I'm doubting a Best Picture nomination.

This has been shown to members of the British press.

In the course of Mark Romanek's film of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel Never Let Me Go, someone asks a teacher, played by Sally Hawkins, if she knows what happens to children when they grow up.

The pupils at this particular school don't grow up to lead normal lives. They're not being bred for that.

Later on, the children from the school scene are played by Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield, and the thing that struck me strongly was that, in certain directorial and thespian hands, Ishiguro's work could have been turned into mawkish slop.

But, with these actors, the film's a thing of rare beauty.

I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't read the novel, but the children are, essentially, farmed and kept out of harm's way.

When they do go out, they don't know how to behave, order a cup of tea, or even express love. Ruth, Keira's character, thinks she's in love with Garfield's Tommy, but the only way she can demonstrate this is by what she has seen on television, which she comes to in her late teens.

Carey anchors the film as Kathy, the narrator, and she's the beating heart of a film that's absolutely extraordinary.

Notwithstanding the plot that I won't give away here, the film wants you to think about the horrors of the commercialisation of the health industry, and how we would be if we weren't exposed to, and able to express, our love of art.

Never Let Me Go is the most haunting film about love and death I've ever seen.

Fox Searchlight will distribute the film - made by DNA Films and Film 4 - late this year or early next.

And I hope they release it as sensitively as it has been made.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/ar ... ds-newsxml

It’s disappointing to see various British publications toeing the US line, insisting the new Spider-Man, 26-year-old British actor Andrew Garfield, is “little-known”.

No, he isn’t. Garfield won a Bafta for his terrific portrayal of an ex-con in Boy A. In his first Hollywood film, Lions for Lambs, he lined up alongside Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise and Robert Redford. And in the scorching television drama Red Riding, he justifiably won rave reviews as a cocky young journalist.

It’ll soon be a moot point, anyhow. I was lucky enough to see an early screening of the British-made film Never Let Me Go, in which he’s heartbreaking as a young man with a short life expectancy. He’s as brilliant as his co-stars Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley. By the time Spider-Man 4 arrives in July 2012, no one will be calling him “little-known”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film ... -Park.html

This will screen at the Toronto Film Festival.

I'm still interested in this, but the trailer they've put out is HORRIBLE.

Yes.

I like Romanek's work, and I have some faith that the movie will be good, but this trailer has done it absolutely no good. Gunslinger alluded to the idea that the central themes/ideas of the story should be kept secret until you actually see it, but this trailer paints a pretty clear picture of what exactly is happening to these people. Disappointing.