Children of Men

Children of Men walks a thin line, but it managed to be a very enjoyable film. The premise is that in 2027, infertility has suddenly swept the world and no babies have been born for 18 years. People see the end of all human life encroaching on them and the aging population gets increasingly hard to control, so anarchy ensues. England is one of the few remaining prosperous, stable nations because it is a dictatorship which imprisons, tortures and kills illegal immigrants. It’s far from an original basis for a sci-fi story, but it’s solid enough. The story revolves around a predictable McGuffin having to be taken by Clive James’ character to a safe haven, despite being coveted by many others who want the political leverage it will give them, leading to a lot of people shouting at others while holding them at gunpoint.

It’s not an original story – few such pieces are – and it was full of shades of 1984, The Handmaid’s Tale and even V for Vendetta. I believe that Brian Aldiss has written a story with a similar premise, though I’ve not actually read it. But Children of Men succeeds in how seriously it takes itself, how little like a sci-fi story it is and how much like a gritty action flick. Its weakest part is the exposition, which is a mess of disjointed scenes of protagonist Theo’s daily life that really don’t tell us much or have any relevance to the main story, but allow us to see what London has become on the sidelines – it could’ve been done much better. It’s only once Julianne Moore’s insipid, irrelevant character with an unconvincing history with Theo has departed that we get to the real meat of the story – a chase movie done very well.

Alfonso Cuarón is a gifted man, and I always admire a director who can spend a lot of money getting a film to look very real indeed. An ambush on a car is done with such brutal realism that I still remember how exciting it was, yet without any trace of the superficiality or glossiness of a Hollywood blockbuster – it was all shaky hand-held cameras, and that’s what made it so compelling and real. Performances are mostly top-notch, with some very natural, spontaneous-feeling dialogue – although occasionally things got clunky, especially with the freedom fighters. Pam Ferris’s wonderful middle-classed earth mother-type was superb; some will find her over-the-top but many will recognise her as spot-on for that type of person. Peter Mullan’s swaggering cop was also great. Michael Caine puts in a typical Michael Caine cameo with his usual brilliance, too. As for Clive Owen – he does the job, in his typical deadpan way. I didn’t especially like him but didn’t dislike his performance or anything. The girl who played Kee was noteworthy, too. But…was that McGuffin CG?