Literature Review: Never Let Me Go

Note: If I see even one comment saying: "Hey, this is just like The Island!" I might have an aneurysm.



I've mentioned Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go in a previous article, and considering the movie adaption just came out, now seems like a good time to discuss it at length. I care a lot about this book. Not only because it's excellent, but because I wrote a paper on it that won an award and earned me a great deal of respect from my professors at John Jay. When I heard there was an adaptation coming, I cringed, and I'll post my thoughts about the film soon, but for now we're focusing on the original material.

The great concern of contemporary science fiction has been the idea of genetic engineering--the creation of the Tomorrow Man, the Ubermensch, Brock Samson, whatever you want to call him. Hitler was obsessed with the idea, writers have been obsessed with it from Gene Roddenberry to Chris Carter to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster to Alan Moore. Attached to this idea/fear, in more recent years, is the advent (theory really) of cloning. The debate from both sides of the cloning "controversy" can be read in Clones and Clones: Facts and Fantasies About Human Cloning. Never Let Me Go not only contains fears about cloning, but also details what these clones can be used for: harvesting organs.

The world Never Lets Me Go exists in is a dystopian one, but whereas other dystopias in fiction like 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale or even the sci-fi dystopias like Blade Runner or Gattaca, where the creators are trying to draw a parallel, create a metaphor or make a statement about the world we live in, the dystopia in Never Let Me Go is the most banal one you can find. Ishiguro might have married the concepts in Clones and Clones with Black Markets: The Supply and Demand of Body Parts but it only is a backdrop, an incidental that is sometimes distracting within the greater theme and ambition of the story, which is learning to cope with mistakes and the realization that you've wasted your time. The characters of Kathy and Tommy are Proustian in their desires to want to gain much of what was lost, to have enough time to plumb the depths of feelings and experiences they didn't have in the past, only to see that they have always been too late. It's an unrequited love story. With clones.

The world of Never Let Me Go finds the world after WW2 making many scientific advancements--notably in cloning. They use the clones to replace organs for sick people. Normal people have an average life span of well over one hundred years by the time we come to the present of the story. An average clone will die at thirty (Logan's Run?). For a time there was a form of civil rights movement that scientists ran to try to give these clones more humane treatment (but not to stop the process of donations--a reality they learned to live with) and it was popular for a while until Dr. Morningdale tried to raise an army of genetically engineered clones led by Ricardo Montalbán. But, as I said, that's not the real point of the story, it's about three clones: Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth.

They grow up in Hailsham--a name as subtle as naming a prison Plenty-o-Rapin'--a boarding school where clones are raised, taught, cultured, and eventually sent to cottages (think dorms) before becomes carers and doners. Kathy (our narrator) is passive but kind and deeply introverted. Tommy is her friend, and is--god bless him--not very quick on the uptake. He's a bit of a simpleton prone to temper tantrums and wearing bad clothes. Naturally, he is the lost love of her life. Then there's Ruth. A girl who on the Peggy Hill Scale of Twatiness manages to score an 8. She purposely steals Tommy from Kathy because...well the plot tells us it's because she's a bitch.

10.

Despite the fact that the clones are given money, a place to live, no real way of being kept under control, and a eventually a car, nobody ever considers running away from certain death. People have called it a plot hole but it's actually programming. They couldn't even if they wanted to: no real identity, no last names, no social security card, not really human. They are simply living out their lives the way they believe it's meant to be lived, but the plot--the science of the process and the backstory of donations--does not really matter in the end, it becomes a device to allow our protagonists to feel down, and eventually to simply wish they had more time. Ishiguro loves character tragedy and he used this cloning idea to create a new line of drama to allow this tragedy. 

As always, it's the characters that make the story, and the characters are all three dimensional--even Ruth--and it's the fact that they're real and they act like real people--that manages to keep a story about clones living in a dystopic alternate universe United Kingdom from flying off the rails. The elegiac prose keeps the downbeat tempo and the attention to character nuance and detail makes sure the there is always a center to the story and events for the most part--minus the jarring jumps in time, the sometimes overly subtle action, and Ruth's ability to divine addresses from her deathbed--unfold organically and logically. These were regular people in an abnormal situation. Never Let Me Go is a science fiction novel, but only, in some ways, by default. I mentioned once that there is a stigma in genre fiction and that this novel managed to avoid all that because it manages to be literary and so shmucky elitist critics don't feel like nerds for liking a book about clone lovin', but this is still a science fiction novel. It's about choices and how some of them are made by us, some of them aren't, some of them are right, and sometimes we cannot correct the ones that are wrong.

Never Let Me Go: 4 out of 5.

Precious Memories: Savages at the Movies

I realize that I spoke about douchebaggery at the movies before in A Girl Called Life Story, but this is still an entirely different situation.

There really isn't all that much to cover that all of you haven't experienced and thought before. The Regal on 42st is surrounded by places to eat fried food at reasonable prices and an AMC theater across the street. There are twenty some odd movies to choose from so any given day these theaters are packed. Needless to say the savages are always in full force, and the only thing more stereotypical than the characters in Devil were the people we were watching it with.

Even though we were fairly early, seats were tough to come by. We found some seats at the back of the theater. My friends sat in the two-seaters in front of me, I sat in the single seater behind them, and behind me was the final row of seats along the wall. To our left was the center row of seats where a fight broke up between two guys. The guy in the first row was angry at the guy in the row behind him because guy number 2 was telling a vulgar story and guy number 1 was with his kid. Guy number 2 replied: "Yo, shut the fuck up, I'm just sittin here, what are you--the FDA tell me what to say?" Instead of correcting guy number 2's obvious agency mistake, this degraded into more obscenities from both sides because nothing says "Don't be vulgar" like listening to your father call a stranger a dumb fuck.

Behind me was a family. The husband was Marlon Brando's size, his wife was Precious, and they brought along their kids. One was a teenager, the other was about two, the last one was an infant. This, naturally, was going to end in tragedy for everyone around them.

 The infant was constantly making noise and on the verge of crying, so rather than take the kid outside for a minute and cool off, selfish mom and dad who don't notice the cries of kids anymore decide to stay and make the rest of us suffer. The two year old was attempting to talk and basically just talking psycho-babble nonsense and mom and dad would only intermittently say "Shut up, I keep telling you."

Ahead of us another baby started to cry and mom just sat there and let this little parasite cry. Around the theater, other parents who also brought young kids would scream or cry when they became scared or realized they were watching a D-list horror movie, and I leaned ahead to my friends and asked the question that was on all of our minds: "Where's Andrea Yates when you need her?"

Behind me, the family that Roseanne was based on was beginning to implode. Marlon and Precious would take turns scolding or comforting one of their half-retard products of incest, so the one who was busy attempting to be a parent missed some of the very good dialogue and break-neck plotting so they'd have to be caught up with the plot, ready with follow up questions and exclamatory noises and comments as well.

When a fake out would happen (a fairly often occurrence) Marlon would repeatedly yell Oh shit oh shit oh shit, the younger kids would begin to squeal and cry, and I would suddenly understand Dean Wormer a little more each time: "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life."

He wasn't the only one to do this mind you, as a good third of the audience needed to let the rest of us know how fucking cool the scene was by reiterating what happened loudly and following it up with OHHHHHH.

At some point, their baby dropped something just beneath my seat, leading Marlon and Precious to team up and push my chair forward repeatedly trying to find it. When that failed, Precious sat on the stairs beside me, lit up her cell phone in my eyes to see, and pushed my chair. I glared at her and when she finally noticed, she looked down immediately and muttered the most half-hearted unapology I've ever heard. So I farted. Not exactly my most clever response, but it was more than effective. It was one of those silent fermented garbage covered in Merlot ones that can only be produced when your new diet consists only of Nutri-Grain bars, fruit and Cran Raspberry juice. Precious decided then whatever was dropped wasn't worth recovering.   

Why is it that parents are more selfish these days? If you can't find a babysitter, don't see the fucking movie. Just because you don't find your spouse attractive anymore and you resent your ugly offspring for destroying your body and eating up all your food, happiness, money and free time doesn't mean the rest of us have to suffer because you either couldn't pull out or didn't understand the responsibility of having a kid in the first goddamn place.

When the twist reveal of the identity of the Devil happened, Marlon yelled Oh shit shit shit oh shit! I told you! Fuckin told you, remember? I said it was the old white bitch! OHHHHHH shit! Half of the aisle actually turned and looked at him, that's how loud he was.

The movie ended and we got out of there as quickly as possible and my friend said to me: "If it's not playing at Lincoln Center, we're not seeing it."

I agreed.

For further consumption from people who are much funnier than me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSb9sMUjyyE

Film Review: Devil

Actual Tagline: Bad Things Happen For a Reason. (That's right folks, it starts off with a cliché. Do you think this is going to be a positive review?)

Before I begin, I need to mention this will be a two part review. This first part is a review of the movie. Part two is rant about the audience in the theater.

As I said before, I go into every movie, despite preconcieved notions, with the idea that I will like it. However, I usually know going in I'm going to be either entertained or disgusted and I'm rarely wrong. The decision to see Devil was made unanimously by my friends and because we figured it would be good for laughs, especially considering the lady in the water himself, M. Night Shyamalan, was producing and credited with the story. Naturally, going in we figured this was going to be yet another Shyamalan shitfest and we were right. The funny thing is, Devil is a pretty terrible movie, but not nearly as terrible as The Happening or The Last Airbender. I really don't know what a casual viewer can take away from that if anything, especially considering that you really can't get much worse than those two movies, but a victory is a victory I suppose.

As with every movie (that falls within some sub-genre of horror) I review, I must make mention of my guide to making a contemporary horror film. It must have:
1- Telling camera angles/bad directing.
2- Terrible dialogue/bad writing.
3- Scares that make the audience laugh.
4- Vacuous/attractive cast.
5- Terrible acting.
6- A predictable plot.
7- Convenient and nonsensical plot twists (and plot devices).
8- Archetypal or stereotypical characters instead of characters with any real depth.
9- More fake outs than actual scares.
(Also: supernatural themed horror movies must involve a person under 12 or over 50 as either some kind of key to the plot or villain--because nobody would ever expect that.)

The only thing that Devil didn't have was number 4, which means there isn't even eye candy or nudity to occupy you as the movie spends 80 minutes telling the viewer that they're idiots for purchasing tickets to this movie.

There is a racial undertone to this movie that is uncomfortable. And I'm not saying that I was offended, just annoyed at the predictability. Despite the fact that the black guy was a security guard, he's--as Detective Bowden referred to him--a thug, and when put under pressure suddenly reverts to street slang, the white woman is a rich twat, the scary white guy is a drunken blue collar rube, the Mexican is extremely religious.

I rarely make reference to the direction of a film. I only do so when it is specifically great (Inception) or specifically bad (Star Trek 2009). This movie falls into the latter side of direction. John Erick Dowdle directed Devil and you may know him from such classic features as Quarantine and The Poughkeepsie Tapes. The actors often stare directly into the camera when speaking, POVs during certain action sequences, and aerial views for establishing shots. This is an unpleasant directing choice as the frenetic camera movements make the audience sick and the extreme close ups cut off most of the character's heads and chins. At the same time, when filming scenes that are not in the elevator, Dowdle employs wide angle shots, which are fine, but he pans back too far and draws attention to the periphery around the characters more than the characters themselves. We expect to see something important or scary (as if that would happen in this film), but nothing happens, and since Devil takes place in Philadelphia it's not like the scenery is worth taking in.

I've never been infuriated by the opening credits of a film. I have said before that I prefer when movies actually have opening credits--something that has become pretty rare for some reason these days--but these credits were fucking terrible. We're given an upside down Philadelphia (pictured at the top of the post) as we go through the names of cast members, producers, stunt coordinators, hacks, and costume designers. The camera pans over upside down city before movie to an aerial view (!) only to move back to the upside down view again. This was nauseating, and, even more nauseating, a heavy handed attempt at symbolism (more on that in a second) to show the audience that the Devil is here and has fucked up an entire city; at the end of the movie, once the Devil goes away we're given the shot again only the city is right side up again. Because the Devil is gone and everything normal again. Get it? Fuck me.

While we're on the topic of sybolism in Devil, I'd like to mention that it is as subtle as Michael Moore's overeating. The address of the building is 333, a character is named Sarah from the Bible story, Bowden's family is killed on Bethlehem Road, the bread truck the first victim falls on is called Bethel Bread Inc. Try harder.

While we're on the subject of the bread truck incident. The jumper goes through the window, hits the truck, the truck rolls, leading to Bowden's involvement which leads to him accidentally solving the murder of his wife and son. The person who jumped did so because he believed the Devil was in the building. Since the Devil put all of this into motion for a reason (a shitty one), this death was on purpose. However, the Devil in this movie is obsessed with morality and punishing the bad. So what about this poor asshole? We never find out anything about him (I believe his name was P. Device) after the suicide note that names the Devil being in the building as the reason to jump. Couldn't have he simply, you know, walked out of the building and went home? This jumper was put into the script just to allow the mini-mystery of where he jumped from to begin with so the cops could get involved so the Bowden story can begin. Overly complex? Yes. And speaking of Bowden, how did he accept the notion of the Devil being in the building so suddenly? Oh, yes, I forgot--the plot required it.

The story of Devil was devised by Shyamalan but the screenplay was written by Brian Nelson. The "story by" credit is a strange one and it can mean a few things. It can mean that Shyamalan only did come up with the idea, which was carried to fruition by Brian Nelson (who, paradoxically, wrote the excellent Hard Candy), and it can mean that Shyamalan wrote the story or wrote a draft of the screenplay that Brian Nelson eventually rewrote. Considering Shyamalan is also an executive producer on the film, it's obvious his influence on the film was great. Unfortunately that means this movie wasn't.

Geoffrey Armand, who plays the salesman in the movie is the only proof the Devil exists. Armand, who looks like an AIDS afflicted cadaver:

gets to be married to Christina Hendricks who looks like this:

At the end of the movie, the Devil (whose identity you can figure out using my Contemporary Horror Films Guide above) confronts the individual who killed Bowden's wife and son five years ago. He wants to change places with one of the other dead passengers (so he would go to hell but she wouldn't) but the Devil says that this isn't the way things work--it's too late to be a good person. However, he starts to cry and says he's sorry, and the Devil is suddenly sad, saying, "Damn. I really wanted you." So what you're basically telling me is that once you say or feel sorry, you're not going to hell. This asshole wasn't legitimately sorry. He was a free man (about to get married and get a better job) for the last five years. He was only legitimately sorry because the fucking Devil was confronting him! That's not feeling bad because it was wrong it was feeling bad because he got caught. And suddenly, the Devil just basically says, "Oh well." First of all, this is the fucking Devil. Why does he have rules? Why wouldn't he just take the guy anyway? Secondly, the Devil is older than time, has knowledge unlimited beyond this life. Rather than seem wise or smart or even darkly humorous, Satan just shrugs, says damn, and goes away.

What I can say positively about Devil is that I'm glad they decided not to tack on another plot twist in the final moments of the movie, because they were telegraphing it a mile away.

Stay tuned for tomorrow for my rant about the audience in this movie.

Devil: 2 out of 5.

News

I've purchased tickets to Devil tonight. I'll be posting a review tomorrow.

Also, I'm in love with S.E. Cupp.

(Early) Film Review: Superman/Batman Apocalypse

This won't be released until next week. So how did I manage to get a copy of it?

Apocalypse is a direct sequel to Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Both are from the comics; this one was from Superman/Batman: Supergirl. This stands as another reunion from the DCAU, this time bringing back Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman and Ed Asner as Granny Goodness. Like Public Enemies the core of the story is the same as the comic, but changed to fit the run time limit and as a one-shot story to give a proper conclusion. But that doesn't mean that the ending is good. Or the story for that matter.

I have no idea why it is that the story was renamed Apocalypse as the story has nothing to do with a world ending. The story centers on Superman meeting his long lost cousin Kara and the shitstorm her being on earth causes. It garners the attention of Batman, Wonder Woman and Darkseid, and leads to about twenty minutes of dialogue and an hour of mindless action. But even action heavy DC animated features (Red Hood for example) does not necessarily mean crap. It just happens to mean that here.

What worked in the movie version Public Enemies was its ability to cut out the superfluous subplots in the story and deliver action and a very strong character study on Lex Luthor. What Apocalypse lacks is substance. We really aren't given a reason to like Kara other than the fact that Superman likes her. The story has no real bottom to it. It is all about Superman trying to prove she isn't evil. It is predictable and dry. The action is fine, but it cannot hold up the entire feature.

When you consider the source material, Supergirl, you see that they retained the majority of the story and scenes--sometimes shot by shot and line for line, just like in Public Enemies. And just like Public Enemies, Supergirl was mediocre to begin with. Proper story elements were altered to make Public Enemies good, but in not changing anything but the title this time around, there was little this production could do to keep from being as mediocre as the comic.

One thing I have to mention on the outset is from the beginning of Apocalypse: Gotham has automated blimps patrolling the city at all times. They go out of their way to mention this, but it is never important. And the idea itself. Yeah, that can't end terribly, right?

The voice acting was nothing to write home about. Despite an able cast made up of Kevin Conroy, the delicious Summer Glau, Susan Eisenberg, Tim Daly, and Andre Braugher, it looks like everybody phoned it in. And while we're on the subject, having Darkseid voiced by Braugher instead of Michael Ironside is as smart and effective as having Billy Baldwin voice Batman.

One of the few things I can say stand out is the artwork. The animators decided to keep Michael Turner's style, and I think it is a fitting homage for the deceased would-have-been-great.

Before I finish up, I really want to be clear. This isn't a bad story. It's worth checking out, but there isn't anything that really stands out (besides Batman out-playing Darkseid). It's not a bad movie, just typical.

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse: 2 1/2 out of 5.