Children of Men

Rating

Director

Alfonso Cuaron

Screenplay

Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby (Novel by P.D. James)

Length

109 min.

Starring

Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Pam Ferris, Danny Huston, Peter Mullan

MPAA Rating

R (For strong violence, language, some drug use and brief nudity)

Review

Terminally ill patients who know they are going to die often live life to the fullest by doing things they had always wanted to do before their time comes. Children of Men explores the same idea from a societal perspective.

Women have become sterile; no new child has been born in more than twenty years. Fearing its mortality, society has begun to crumble. Military law is in effect and many foreign countries have collapsed into ruin, forcing millions to immigrate to England. However, the British government doesn’t want Fugees in their lands and has begun setting up prison camps to hold them all.

Theo Faron (Clive Owen) has little concern for the world about him. He lives in a safe neighborhood, works in a safe job but lives an unsafe life. As example, a “terrorist” attack levels a coffee shop from which he had just left. It sets him to thinking about his own mortality and when an ex-lover, Julian Taylor (Julianne Moore) comes out of the woodwork with a proposition, his initial response of “no” soon develops into a struggle to save society as a whole.

Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) is pregnant. If she is captured by the government, there is no telling what might become of her, so a group of rebels embark on a risky plan to try and deliver her to an Amnesty International-style group called The Human Project. Theo takes young Kee on a thrilling, dangerous and intriguing journey through the bowls of hell in order to bring her to the coast and deliver her to safety.

Alfonso Cuaron’s tendency towards dark themes is at full work herein. His Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is one of the series’ best pictures because it eschewed gloss for depth and darkness. In Children of Men, the plight of a crumbling society rests on the shoulders of one man whose mortality is as questionable as the planet’s. Cuaron guides us through bleak and disturbing images as we follow Theo and Kee on their journey towards a promising future.

Children of Men takes us into a world that is not terribly difficult to imagine. If reality were to suddenly become infertile, what is brought before the camera is as prescient and insightful an idea of what would happen as any post-apocalyptic story we’ve yet to see on the big screen. The film is unrelenting in its visceral qualities, highlighted by an exhilarating single-shot run through the streets of a war torn concentration camp where the government is fighting both rebels and the slum’s own tenants for superiority. This scene is capped by an incredibly touching scene of revelation that is best left for the audience to experience.

This film is hardly a showcase of performance. While many of them are fine by many standards, they take a back seat to the disturbing and thought-provoking story. Adapted from the novel by P.D. James, Cuaron and his team of writers have created a modern classic of futuristic malcontent. Many films of this type have made elements of the setting too fantastic to be believed but with Children of Men we have a unique brand of realism that helps the audience empathize and relate with their surroundings.

Many audiences might flinch at the barrage of sound and violence in the production but any true cineaste will find this an admirable and provocative tale.

Review Written

February 6, 2007