Set in an alternative present where disease has been mysteriously eradicated, it follows Mulligan, Garfield and Knightley, three residents of a special 'preparatory' school, as their friendships bloom and wither through the years. Like WWII soldiers on the frontline, they await their preordained fates in ignorance, and the film thrums with the shell-shocked austerity of that era. "Maybe none of us really understand what we live through…" concludes Mulligan, whose astonishingly assured performance seems to draw on centuries lived out in the cold.
Lack of awareness is the key here; the protagonists’ sad little lives pivoting on misunderstandings, immature assessments of the not-so-brave new world around them, and things left unsaid. As they move from childhood straight to decrepitude, much of the drama happens at arm’s length, and the grim realities of their lab-rat existences are couched in euphemisms where, for example, death becomes "completion" and hospices "recovery centres". It's a hymn to mute incomprehension, a paean to chances missed, but so all-consuming is the characters’ emptiness it begins to deflate the entire enterprise, and the art-cinema averse will begrudge the lack of emotional release. Though sensitively assembled by talented professionals, this is a film that wants to cry, but can’t remember how. Hide
Better in the pages of a book than movie. Dont know, to do it justice maybe unknown actors would help nail it.
this looks looks bizarre! is the novel good?
Can't wait to see this - the book was amazing, and I am hoping this brilliant young cast will translate it well!
Really thought the book was disappointing so am hoping the film will be better, cast is whats making want to see it.
I saw it but knew going into it it was not for me. movie would have done better 20 years ago
really depressing
Loved this movie, it was the topic of discussion long after we left the cinema.
no i don't think so. the premise is stolen from the great phillip k. dick and raped into an insipid, lifeless non event of a film
Hated it. Depressing. Love story just didn't work for me at all. Disappointing
I agree with Janet, very dark movie. I did not like it at all