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Considering that we’re making it a point to discuss literary adaptations this week, when I saw the poster for the big-screen version of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, my first instinct was to immediately perform a Google search to get some confirmation that Time magazine had in fact declared this novel The Best of The Decade. It turns out that there is no (easily found) proof of this — and several other blogs have made note of the liberties taken on the film’s poster. The magazine’s list of the 100 Top Novels of All Time includes other books in NLMG‘s decade (like Atonement and The Corrections), so no one’s quite sure how Ishiguro’s book catapulted past the others. So what’s the lesson here? You better be honest in your marketing, Hollywood studios! Or else everyone’s going to fixate on the claims you make in your posters instead of building positive word of mouth about the movie you’re trying desperately to promote.

All of this negative-ish buzz is a darn shame, because otherwise I really like the poster. While I adored the author’s excellent The Remains of the Day, I’ve not yet read Never Let Me Go.  (Though I will remedy that before the film is out in limited release in mid-September.) Even so, I felt the spot above was strong because the letters breaking apart at the end seem to signify that despite the title’s plea, a relationship does unravel. I also have respect for the fact that the marketers didn’t feel the need to splash huge close-ups of Keira Knightley and It Girl Carey Mulligan (one of my faves, hooray!) across the page; they instead did the exact opposite.

I dug the trailer even more.

So now’s the time when I admit to doing something extremely lame and (in my mind) deplorable. Starting with the brief flash of the kids tapping their wrists on a scanning device at the -1:50 mark and continuing throughout the rest of the trailer, I got the sense that this was not your average romantic-triangle drama. It seemed like there was an undercurrent of sci-fi goin’ on. So do you know what I did? I went and read a recap of the book (even though I already have it on order, mind you) and totally ruined the whole thing for myself. I’m so mad that I did this. I almost always can control my urge to give in to spoilers that I know must exist in the world. Alas, this time I caved. (At least now I understand what the breaks in the letters on the poster represent.)

But don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil any of you. In fact, I urge you to stay in the dark if you haven’t yet read the novel. Because even though I now know what happens, I’m still curious to see how it’s handled on the silver screen. Since Never Let Me Go was a huge bestseller, I’m assuming there are quite a few of you out there who’ve read it — and therefore talking about the details of the plot IS allowed in the comments section. Have at it! Since I’ve already established Keira, Carey and soon-to-be Spider-Man Andrew Garfield in my mind as the main trio, I of course have no chance of forming other visuals in my head when I read the book, so I’d especially love to hear what you think about the casting choices.

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