Fox Searchlight has just debuted the first trailer for Never Let Me Go, an adaptation of (as the the clip brags) "the best novel of the decade" according to Time Magazine.  Alex Garland (Sunshine) adapted Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel for director Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo).  Carey Mulligan (An Education), Andrew Garfield (Red Riding), and Keira Knightley (Atonement) star as childhood friends who confront the harsh realities of life outside their sheltered boarding school.  Check out the trailer after the jump.

Here's the official synopsis:

In his highly acclaimed novel NEVER LET ME GO, Kazuo Ishiguro (THE REMAINS OF THE DAY) created a remarkable story of love, loss and hidden truths. In it he posed the fundamental question: What makes us human? Now director Mark Romanek (ONE HOUR PHOTO), writer Alex Garland and DNA Films bring Ishiguro’s hauntingly poignant and emotional story to the screen. Kathy (Oscar® nominee Carey Mulligan, AN EDUCATION), Tommy (Andrew Garfield, BOY A, RED RIDING) and Ruth (Oscar® nominee Keira Knightley, PRIDE & PREJUDICE, ATONEMENT) live in a world and a time that feel familiar to us, but are not quite like anything we know. They spend their childhood at Hailsham, a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. When they leave the shelter of the school and the terrible truth of their fate is revealed to them, they must also confront the deep feelings of love, jealousy and betrayal that threaten to pull them apart.

The trailer does a good job at establishing a certain gloomy atmosphere.  The film appears to share some common thematic ground with Mulligan's An Education and Knightley's Atonement, in terms of the abrupt maturation of young English people, though I'm almost certainly reaching.  Judge for yourself:

Click on over to Apple for HD.