Never Let Me Go (2010)

The first time I watched this, I suspected it suffered from the fact that I'd so recently read the novel. Seeing it 14+ years later, I can confirm this was, indeed, the case. Now that the story's particulars have faded from memory, I was free to experience this without comparison it to the source material. What I saw was incredibly haunting and beautiful.

Generally, when a film has an oppressive mood that refuses to lift, I can get a little antsy and feel like screaming "LIGHTEN UP FOR JUST A MINUTE COULDJA??" but I never felt that here. Maybe because the melancholy felt honest rather than like a device -- like that's just how these isolated children would feel. It's gorgeously quiet, desperately sad and every single actor knocks it out of the park.

A-