Welcome to the second session of The Courier Class.

The script we will be discussing is Never Let Me Go, which is released to theaters on Sept. 15th.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1334260/

While I have assembled a number of questions, feel free to pick and chose what you respond to.

And with that . . .


SPOILERS

OBVIOUSLY

SPOILERS

If you look at the assembled cast, would you say the movie is cast well? Are there any actors or actresses you can envision being better suited for certain characters?

i actually have no issues with the leads (carey mulligan, keira knightley, andrew garfield), and i'm not familiar enough with british actors to suggest replacements. but it was mentioned that the characters were cloned from the people at the bottom of the societal ladder ("junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps"), and the leads look way more like they were cloned from runway models. it's a small gripe. i did picture them all as plainer from the beginning though. i saw tommy as pudgy for some reason. maybe because he was kid all the other kids teased. small gripe. people don't pay to see movies about plain-looking people, i get it.

>but it was
>mentioned that the characters were cloned from the people at
>the bottom of the societal ladder ("junkies, prostitutes,
>winos, tramps"), and the leads look way more like they were
>cloned from runway models.

I don't think you're actually supposed to take that at face value. It seemed to be more of a reflection of the clone's perception of self-worth, considering they were effectively disposable human beings. Even as far as "science-fiction" goes, it would be more logical that the clones were from specimens without a history of degeneracy.

If you were trying to sell the script to a producer, is there any one scene you would use to convince people to take a chance on it? Conversely, is there any one scene you think would be a cause for concern?

there's no one scene that really stands on its own as something you could pull out as representative of the whole thing. the heart of the movie is the love triangle between kathy, ruth, and tommy, so it'd have to be something involving them, and something that hints at the secrets surrounding them.

to me, it's the scene where kathy is listening to ruth and tommy having sex in the next room, then rolls over and suddenly ruth is standing there in the doorway. she goes to kathy's bed and tells her, "i know what you think, kathy," and proceeds to tell her she never had a chance with tommy. then follows that by telling her she knows why kathy was looking at the porno magazines, ending creepily with: "he didn't understand what you were doing. but i did."

the danger is that you could read that scene on its own and figure the secret is that kathy's a lesbian or ruth is secretly into her or something like that. the way ruth touches kathy's hair and whispers in her ear makes that the obvious conclusion. but if played with the right amount of creepiness (and i think knightley is up to the task), and if you already know they're clones (which we do at that point in the script), that scene tells you everything you need to know about the three main characters while making you wonder-- as i did-- what exactly kathy was doing with that magazine.

but if I had to pick one, it might have been the scene where they're in front of the office building, trying to figure out if it is indeed Ruth's original that they're looking at.

Early on, a couple key plot elements are brought up by the characters but with no surrounding explanations given, e.g., caretakers, donors, guardians, the art gallery, just who is at the school and why, etc. How engrossed were you in this mystery? Any initial confusion? Where did you think the story was going after the first third or so?

the scene at the very beginning with tommy laying on the operating table, ribs open, missing a lung, and losing half his liver. without that, the first act is pretty mundane. all the stuff with the kids isn't all that interesting, i didn't really care why their artwork was getting collected or what miss lucy said to tommy to get him to stop losing his temper. i did wonder why madame was so afraid of the kids, like when the girls snuck up behind her and all spoke in unison like children of the corn. that got me from page 20 to 35.

the scene on page 35 where miss lucy revealed to the children that they were clones was a letdown though. it was like, oh, that's the secret. okay. seems like that's something you'd rather the kids discover on their own, and perhaps in a creepy or disconcerting way, than just be told.

i did get the feeling that the script was a bit too dependent on keeping us in the dark as to what was really going on (especially since the big mystery isn't super shocking). take away that mystery aspect, and the story itself isn't all that compelling. it read like something that wouldn't work on repeat viewings.

How do you think the relationships between Tommy and Ruth, Tommy and Kathy, and Ruth and Kathy were developed? Did you have any sort of emotional investment in their characters, how they ended up,
or with whom they ended up?

On a single read, I felt that the script as a whole was quite spartan, though not necessarily to its detriment. The dynamic of Kate and Ruth's relationship wasn't exactly tangible, but the nature of jealousy and its affect on close friendships is something that honestly only requires sketching to be believable.

There's also an element of parable to the events that makes its vague dreamlike quality more forgivable, so Ruth's teary reveal that she regrets her actions and wants only for Kate and Tommy to live happily ever after is ok, even if we're given no real reason to believe that weak-willed Ruth would actually strive for such a thing. Especially considering it's absolute coincidence.

So, no, I didn't really have any investment in these characters, but I was nonetheless affected by the story, which possessed a very sincere and serene melancholy to the bitter end.

not the way i think the script wanted me to. what was their great unrequited love based on? 'cause she didn't tease him like everyone else? 'cause he gave her a mixtape back when they were kids? well, he was slobbing down ruth the next day, so it couldn't have meant all that much to him. and that kind of stuff happens all the time. kids like each other, the music stops, and they end up in someone else's chair.

the script gave me no reason to believe that ruth and tommy's relationship wasn't genuine or that kathy's feelings for tommy were anything more than a crush that her social awkwardness wouldn't let her move beyond. or that tommy still had-- or ever had-- real feelings for kathy. so it's not that i didn't care about the characters, it's just that the "right" pairings (which are usually obvious in rom-coms, for example) weren't apparent to me. so when kathy and tommy ended up together at the end, i guess we're supposed to be really invested in that. i was just like, oh, okay.

EDIT: i think this is something that would be easy to fix visually without even revising the script. the way tommy and kathy look at each other, interact with each other, laughs, hugs, secret glances, etc. or if ruth is slightly cold around tommy, slightly artificial. things that wouldn't necessarily be in the script but that are more in the director's (and actors') hands can make it more obvious to us that tommy and kathy are meant to be with each other.

Miss Lucy comes in as an admitted outsider and immediately poke holes at the "unnatural" ways of Hailsham. Especially regarding the contrasts she presents, what did you think of her character? She has a quick intro and a quick exit, but did how she was handled work for you?

miss lucy's character was fine. a plot device, someone to tell the kids what's going on. i would have liked to maybe see some behind-the-scenes debate between her and another adult, most likely miss emily, about why we don't tell these kids what's going on. it doesn't have to reveal the mystery, you can still save that for the classroom scene with the kids. but for a film about a number of what would be very controversial subjects (cloning, organ harvesting, human lab rats, concentration camps, etc.), there was very little discussion of ethics. for the most part, everyone just accepted things as they were. i want to know what the dissenters to this system, like miss lucy, really think.

On page 32, Kathy listens to the (fictitious) Judy Bridgewater cassette she's been given by Tommy and then opens her eyes startlingly to see Madame staring at her. Clearly, reading these descriptions is a different experience than seeing them unfold on the screen, but how effective was that page of description for you? What did you feel from the story as you read it? A sense of tragedy? Sadness? Inevitability? Nervousness? Nothing?

i could see this being a nice poignant little scene, with the music and everything. it definitely adds to the mystery, and it's a great lead-in to the big reveal in the next scene. i had no idea why madame was crying, but i wanted to find out.

The time and place of the story is never explicitly stated. It seems at once long ago but then also futuristic and ultimately obviously not of this world. How did that ambiguity play for you? Or did you have a different take altogether on the setting of the story?

where it's sometime in the future, but not so far off that there's flying cars and robots walking around. the place is pretty clearly england or somewhere near there.

When the thing ends, do you think there's been too much explanation of just what was going on or not enough? Concerning what was explained, how do you think those explanations were handled? Too on-the-nose? Not clearly enough?

but way too little for the subject matter. like i said above, there's just so many incredibly interesting ethical and scientific issues surrounding human cloning. the world of the film (as sporadically and briefly described, especially at the end by madame) is fascinating. a world where cancer and many other diseases have been cured, but at the expense of few (hundred? thousand? million?) clones who are used for experimentation and organ harvesting. it brings up an endless amount of questions, the foremost for me being: why don't the clones try to escape? or revolt? is there something that obviously marks them as clones? have they just been so indoctrinated and psychologically manipulated that they're resigned to their fate? also, can they reproduce? with all the sex tommy and ruth were having, i halfway expected ruth to come through pregnant at some point. then what?

of course, none of this has much to do with the story, which is basically a classic love triangle between kathy, tommy, and ruth. in that respect, we get all the explanation we need about the world they live in. but it's kind of a letdown. when you introduce a world this interesting, i think the audience is gonna want to play in it a little bit.

EDIT: although i should say that some movies go too far in the other direction and explain too much. it almost makes it more believable that everyone accepts this futuristic world as it is and doesn't really discuss it much, because that's how things generally work. and i can respect that. for my tastes though, i didn't think the love story was strong enough to make me not feel the desire to go exploring outside. for example, a film like children of men, where it's a setting that introduces a million questions, but the smaller story is so strong that you don't necessarily need to know the whys and hows of the futuristic world they're in.

Fill in the blank: This is a movie (script) about _________. . . . Why?

it's a traditional love story under very unconventional circumstances.

Finally, are you more likely or less likely to see this movie now than you were before you read the script?

i think it could make a good movie in the hands of the right director.

Some options for October:

Buried (opens later this month but with a wide release the second week of October)
The Social Network (October 1)
It's Kind of a Funny Story (October 8)
Hereafter (October 22)

I couldn't make it through the first ten pages of Funny Story. I was going to read Hereafter recently, but then I saw the shoddy-ass trailer and haven't had the guts to. Buried and The Social Network are left then. I read both, and there's a novelty to each of them that makes them enticing, but I think there's more to talk about with The Social Network than Buried. However, I'm game for whatever so . . . ?

i'm a sorkin fan.

Social Network is my most anticipated film of the fall and I would rather see it first before reading the script.

It takes all of an hour, tops.

C'mon, y'all don't let this die in the second month.

it's a shame, too, 'cause this is a great idea. maybe better suited to a screenwriting forum.

You two acquitted yourselves both months, so props there.

The scriptshadow blog probably is the "best" place currently for the discussion of scripts (that's relative).

Here's the master link by the way
http://tinyurl.com/r5953b

>The scriptshadow blog probably is the "best" place currently
>for the discussion of scripts (that's relative).

will try to get my thoughts in by the end of the following week.

let's keep this thing going.

the movie just felt so eh. I read the book and it was engrossing and all but I felt the same way.

Like, ok these kids turn adults are clones that are meant to die and be organ donors and etc... Some fall in love, one person watches from the outside kinda of. just bland, sorry I was more in for the TOWN out of pure shits and giggles.

I dunno I guess I felt like it was a non action Michael Bay'd version of The Island.

I'm in for the next one and I'll try to answer some of the questions this weekend

scanning through some reviews on rotten tomatoes, a few people took issue with the same thing i did, which is why didn't they try to escape or take some kind of assertive action to change their situation? people lying down and basically accepting their circumstances might be realistic, but it doesn't make for very good drama. like you said, bland.

interviews novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and screenwriter Alex Garland.

peep here

http://creativescreenwritingmagazine.blogspot.com/