Never Let Me Go (2010) Directed by Original by K. Ishiguro

Just saw this, in connection with the beginning of the bioethics unit that I am going to be teaching from tomorrow in my ICU class.

The bioethics connection is that the characters in this movie are humans who have been raised as organ donors. They will be used for organ harvesting.

This is similar to the concept of the 2005 movie, The Island.

However, the movie Never Let Me Go, which is based on the acclaimed 2005 novel of the same title by Kazuo Ishiguro, is more than a bioethics SF film.

If fact, I would argue that it does not fit the genre of SF. It is much more. The file is not really about the ethics of using humans as organ donation machines. That is the main characteristic of the lives that the characters are living, but this is just a background theme that Ishiguro uses to explore other themes of human existence and relationships.

I thought the main theme is how we accept and deal with the time limit of our own existence. As Kathy, the protagonist, ponders at the end, there isn't so much difference between us (non-donor humans), and them, who were created to live, give, and die when they have completed giving. We live, have freedom to some extent, and give ourselves to others, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes with no choice, and them we are "completed," as the donors called it when they die from their final donation operation.

What has Ishiguro said about this novel? Why did he write it? I am curious and want to read the original.