Mark Romanek: Never Let Me Go Interviewed on The Treatment

The guest I listened to on The Treatment was Mark Romanek. He is the director of the recent film "Never Let Me Go", starring Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley. Mark Romanek has directed many high profile music videos in the past as well as the critically acclaimed "One Hour Photo". The Treatment episode aired on October 6, 2010.

I was drawn to this interview with Mak Romanek because I recently watched the film "Never Let Me Go" and was struck by its beauty and minimalism but also troubled by its approach to the subject matter. Mark goes into the reasons behind his minimalist visual style used in the film as well as some of the meaning behind the characters actions and acceptance of their tragic fate. The film is an adaptation of the book of the same title written by Kazuo Ishiguro. I was surprised to learn that reasons behind the strange sort of acceptance of the characters' doomed fate is a theme expressed in the book and has to do with an acceptance of faith and dogma. It is a very Japanese sensibility that sadness and loneliness is a necessary element of life.

"Never Let Me Go" is a film about three childhood friends who grow up in a strange British boarding school and deal with a love triangle through to adulthood. We soon learn a secret, that these three, and many others, are parentless children "grown" to be organ donors for the rest of society. They are doomed to undergo "donation" after "donation" until they "complete" (ie die). Mark describes the film as “an examination of how they [our three character] deal with that secret.” How they deal with that secret is really what troubled me about the film. All three characters simply accept their fate, and despite their feelings for each other and their unhappiness with their existence, they still simply resign themselves to it. They never once try to escape it or refuse to do what is requested of them. I had a very hard time understanding why the characters react this way when watching the film.

Ultimately, the characters seem to be passive to the demands society has put on them despite being relegated to sub-human status. Society believes them to be soulless guinea pigs to be used and discarded. Mark explains this reaction partially by stating “strength is what makes their actions not passive.” I don’t entirely understand what this means but I do see that the characters seem to understand their calling in life and meet it head on without question or hesitation. While they express a quiet, if overly civil, strength, they also appear to be emotionally stunted in the area of anger however. We know they are capable of emotion apparently the same as any human being, but never rebel against the system, even when it means giving up the love of your life.

Mark goes on to describe the characters reaction as “adherence to dogma, adherence to beliefs that leads to a tragic result.” I assume this means our characters are brought up from birth to never question their role and to consider themselves special. The characters belief in what they are doing for society is apparently what drives them on to do so. But I find it incredible human behavior that Carey Mulligan’s character realizes how much she loves her childhood friend Tommy and wants a life with him, and she sees her contemporaries, including her childhood friend Ruth, suffer and die as they undergo multiple operations until death, she never stops and says no, I will not do this. Perhaps adherence to faith is an alien concept to me but it is my belief that these children “grown” for this purpose are not entirely human considering their reaction to their involuntary fate.


I really appreciated Mark Romanek’s thoughts on this film and the reasons for his approach. I learned a lot about the themes of the story and the adaptation of the film from the book. I was stunned by the beauty of the film “Never Let Me Go” and believe it is a great accomplishment by this young director. I didn’t buy all of the elements of this deep examination of the human condition and human emotion but it is an important viewpoint. I am glad movies like this are being made and I hope to see more films from this talented director.