It's not perfect, but it's a pretty good rule of thumb: The more idyllic the setting, the more horrifying the things happening behind the scenes.
As an example, I present "Never Let Me Go," which opened yesterday. Much of it is set in the English countryside, at a boarding school that emulates what so many American kids have visualized since the days of "Tom Brown at Oxford." Everything gleams, from the dark wood of the hallway floors to the bright grass of the front lawn.
Inside, things are very different. Loving but stern teachers like Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling) and Miss Lucy (Sally Hawkins) take good care of their charges, not coddling them, but obviously preparing them for a life of important things.
We focus on three children, Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Keira Knightley), a trio that is among the busier of young actors. Mulligan is in "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," Garfield has a major role in "The Social Network" and will be the title character in next year's "Spiderman" adventure and Knightley will have at least three movies hit theaters in 2011. Moving to the next generation with even younger talent, there is very good work from Isobel Meikle-Small, Charlie Rowe and Ella Purnell as young Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, respectively.
Kazuo Ishiguro's original novel was adapted for the screen by Alex Garland; Mark Romanek directs. The film looks good, and the performances and direction are highly professional, but the subject matter, somewhere between science-fiction and medical mayhem, might be off-putting.
Never Let Me Go opened yesterday at numerous theaters
—Joe