"Students of Hailsham are special."

Yes, they are. At first we see them acting very much like other children: going to class, playing games, teasing. But we begin to notice little differences. No one will go past the fence to retrieve a ball that's been hit. There are stories about what happens to children who go beyond the fence. Their classes aren't very demanding and never seem the kind of thing that will prepare them for a career. Then one of their teachers spills the beans: When they become adults their organs will be used as spare parts for others. The teacher tells them, "You have to know who you are and what you are. It's the only way to lead a decent life."

Never Let Me Go sets itself in an alternate universe in which medical science has increased the expected life span greatly. It has done so by making these clones which they don't really count as human—just organ farms. Certainly this raises all kinds of moral issues, but the film takes place decades away from beginning of this practice, so the issues are considered somewhat settled and not really brought up. But even though the ethical and existential questions are not touched on until late in the film, they underlie the entire film.

The film centers on three of these donors: Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth, friends from their days in school. Tommy is the object of both Kathy's and Ruth's adolescent yearnings. It is Ruth who makes the connection, leaving Kathy a bit of a third wheel, but they all remain the closest of friends when they leave the school to live for a while in the outside world before their donations begin.

We are always wondering how these people can be treated with so little thought or compassion. Indeed, some of the donors spend time before they begin their own donations as "carers"—those who act as a bit of family for these people who truly have no one to care for them—to make them feel better when recovering from surgery or ease their worry before surgery. Kathy opts for this role—not to put off her donations, but because she really is a caring soul. When a few years later Kathy crosses paths with Ruth and Tommy (who have both started their donations) they reconnect and begin to hope for some chance at normal life, even if only temporary.

There is a wonderful image that occurs while the three characters are on a little day trip. They search out a beach that has a boat that has been left high and dry. The boat is nothing but an empty shell, but we know there is more to it than that. What was it used for? Could it still be used? Is there more to it than just how it appears? That is something of a metaphor for these donors. To the non-donor world, these young people seem to be empty shells—no real life, no hopes or dreams. Whenever we see outsiders make contact with them, the outsiders are ill at ease in their presence. They don't know how to understand these people that look so like them, but are "special."

How should these donors be understood? Are they really human? If so, how can we treat them as just an organ repository? How can they so willingly take part in this way of life? Do they have any of the hopes and emotions that we do, or have those been eliminated through their time at Hailsham? Certainly they seem to react as sheep—passively submitting to the life that has been set before them.

I suppose we could concentrate on the ethical issues of cloning and organ donation that are part of the backstory of the film, but it may be more appropriate to consider the ways society already has subcultures that we relegate to a status similar to the donors—people that we see only in their role, not for their humanity. The world around us quickly dehumanizes anyone we really don't want to deal with—enemies (even whole nations), people of other religions, undocumented workers. When we fail to first see them as humans (and as those who bear God's image) we have entered into the same kind of worldview that allows the treatment we see in Never Let Me Go.